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HOG D'S OWN 

SELECTED PAPERS. 
WU^ (Cnrait SllnstrntinnH. 




NEW-YORK: 
G. P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY 

1852. 



a. vc 









ILLUSTKATIONS 



« Take care of the Pence, and the Pounds will take care 




OF Themselves" ..... 


10 


Over the Way ...... 


22 


A Moderate Income . . . . . . 


30 


The Sublime and the Ridiculous 


31 


Refusing Tithe ...... 


64 


" By Gum him Turban Afire" .... 


59 


French and English ...... 


61 


The Lady of « Our Village" . . 


64 


Captain Rock ...... 


73 


Pompey's Pillar ..... 


74 


" Accustomed to the Care of Children" 


76 


Fanny ....... 


77 


« Your Very Humble Servant" .... 


81 


« Oh My Prophetic Soul— My Uncle ! " . 


85 


" Where r ....... 


92 


A Storm in Table Bay ..... 


94 


A Ruff Sea 


96 


Long Commons and Short Commons 


98 


The Short and Long of It . 


99 


Protecting the Fare . . . . 


100 


Tom Bowling ....... 


103 


War Dance.— The Opening of the Ball 


106 


Something above the Common . • . • 


116 


An Illuminated MS. ..... 


119 



IV 



Ketching its Prey 

The Stamp Duty on Scotch Linen 

HiS-TRIONIC .... 

"Pennsylvania" 

The Pound of Flesh 

In Embarrassed Circumstances 

A Good Action meets its Own Reward 

Single Blessedness 

A Tea-Garden . . . . 

" I'll Take a Bed with You !" 

" I wish I was well through it !" 

" The Last in Bed to put out the Light" 

" Kissing goes by Favour" 

" None of your Sauce" 

CouNTi^Y Quarters 

** Why did you Sup on Pork ?" 

Home's Douglas .... 

Practice Drives me Mad 

" Lord, John, here's a Burrow !" 

" Meet me by Moonlight alone " 

St. Blaise .... 

" Posse Cometatis " . . . 

The Harvest Moon 

See-Saw .... 

" Friend, dost thee call this the Pacific 1" 

The Best Bower Anchor 

" Bear about the Mockery of Woe" 

" It cAN't be helped " . 

A General Peace 

" Why don't you look out for Work 1" 

The Family Library . . . 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Miss Norman ....... 9 

Over the Wat ...... 22 

A Letter from a Market Gardener to the Secretary of 

THE Horticultural Society . . . .27 

Domestic Asides ; or, Truth in Parentheses . . 29 

The Parish Revolution . . . . .31 

Poem, — from the Polish . . . . .43 

Epicurean Reminiscences of a Sentimentalist . . 46 

The Discovery ...... 49 

Rhyme and Reason . . . . . .63 

The Double Knock ..... 55 

Letter from a Parish Clerk in Barbadoes to one in Hamp- 
shire, WITH AN Enclosure . . . .66 

French and English . . . . . 61 

Our Village .... . . 63 

The Scrape-Book ...... 69 

A True Story . . . . . . .72 

The Carelesse Nurse Mayd .... 76 

To Fanny . . . . • . .77 

Poems, by a Poor Gentleman .... 80 

Life of Zimmermann . . . . . .87 

The Compass, with Variations .... 93 

Paired, not Matched . . . • . .98 

The Duel. — A Serious Ballad . . • . 100 

There's no Romance in That .... 102 



VI 



FACE. 

A Waterloo Ballad . . . . .105 

A Zoological Report . . , . . 109 

The Boy at the Nore . . . . '114 

johnsoniana . . . . . . 117 

Lines to a Lady on her Departure for Indla. . .123 

Sonnet to a Scotch Girl, Washing Linen after her Country 

Fashion ...... 125 

Pain in a Pleasure-Boat. — A Sea Eclogue . .126 

Ode to Perry, the Inventor of the Patent Perryan Pen 129 
The Island ....... 136 

Number One. — Versified from the Prose of a young Lady 142 
The Abstraction ...... 144 

The Drowning Ducks ..... 150 

The Domestic Dilemma. — A True Story . . .153 

Love and Lunacy . . . . . 172 

The Comet. — An Astronomical Anecdote . . .197 

The Ocean. — Considered per se . . . 201 

The Quakers' Conversazione .... 222 

Sketches on the Road ..... 233 

My Son and Heir ...... 237 



PUBLISHER'S ADVERTISEMENT. 



The favourable reception of the comprehensive selection from 
Thomas Hood's writings in the volumes of " Poems," and " Prose 
and Verse," published a few years since by the subscriber — in a form 
of general similarity to the present series — has induced the under- 
taking of the completion, in this popular style, of the most important 
of this author's numerous productions. The author of " The Pugs- 
ley Papers," « The Dream of Eugene Aram," and « The Song of the 
Shirt," left much behind him engrafted with the humour, the gaiety, 
sentiment, the deep feeling of these well-known writings. In the 
few years which have elapsed since his death, it has been abundantly 
proved that in his peculiar walk he has left no successor. No man 
furnishes us, with so free a hand, such innocent lighUhearted mirth, 
no one's jests play more gracefully, in the happy illustration of the 
old poet, about the heart. 

It was well remarked at the time of his death by an able critic in 
the AtheruEum ;— « The secrets of these effects, if analysed, would 
give the characteristics of one of the most original and powerful 
geniuses which ever was dropped by Faery into infant's cradle, and 
oddly nursed up by man into a treasure, quaint, special, cameleon- 
coloured in the changefulness of its tints, yet complete and self con- 
sistent. Of all the humorists Hood was the most poetical. When 
dealing with the most familiar subjects, whether it might be a Sweep 
bewailing the suppression of his cry, or a Mother searching through 
St, Giles's for her lost infant, or a Miss Kilmansegg's golden child- 



viii 

hood — ^there was hardly a verse ia which some touches of heart, or 
some play of fancy, did not beckon the laughing reader away into 
far other worlds than the Jester's." 

This is the spirit of all Hood's volumes, playful and poetical ; light 
as gossamer, but profound enough too, if you look into them ; and, 
above all other jesting — innocent. 

The volumes of Hood which will appear immediately in this series 
are, " Whimsicalities, a Periodical Gathering," made by himself, of 
some of his best papers ; the capital volume of the school of Hum- 
phrey Clinker, " Up the Rhine ; " with a new collection of Miscella- 
neous Prose and Verse under the author's title of " Hood's Own." 

These will be illustrated with the author's quaint and humorous 
designs, which are frequently independent of the text, and always 
laughable epigrams in themselves. 

G. P. PUTNAM. 
New-York, March, 1852. 



HOOD'S OWN. 



There are several objections to one-horse vehicles. With two 
wheels, they are dangerous ; with four, generally cruel inven- 
tions, tasking one animal with the labour of two. And, in 
either case, should your horse think proper to die on the road, 
you have no survivor to drag your carriage through the rest of 
the stage ; or to be sent off gallopping with the coachman on 
his back for a coadjutor. 

That was precisely Miss Norman's dilemma. 

If a horse could be supposed to harbour so deadly a spite 
against his proprietor, I should believe that the one in question 
chose to vent his animosity by giving up the ghost just at the 
spot where it would cause most annoyance and inconvenience. 
For fourteen months past he had drawn the Lady in daily air- 
ings to a point just short of the Binn Gate ; — because that fifty 
yards further would have cost sixpence ; a sum which Miss Nor- 
man could, or believed she could, but ill spare out of a hmited 
income. At this very place, exactly opposite the tall elm which 
usually gave the signal for turning homeward, did Plantagenet 
prefer to drop down stone dead ; as if determined that his mis- 
tress should have to walk every inch of it, to her own house. 

1* 



10 



HOOD^S OWN. 



But Miss Norman never walked. Pedestrianism was, in her 
opinion, a very vulgar exercise, unavoidable with the poor, and to 
some people, as Postmen, Bankers' clerks, Hawkers, and the like, 
a professional mode of progression, but a bodily exertion very dero- 
gatory to persons of birth and breeding. So far was this carried, 
that she was once heard to declare, speaking of certain rather 
humble obsequies, " she would rather live for ever than have a 
walking funeral!" On another occasion, when the great per- 




"TAKE CAREOy THE PENCE, AND THE POUNDS WILL TAKE CARE OF 
TH E MS ELV E S ." 

formance of Captain Barclay, in walking a thousand miles in a 
thousand hours, was submitted to her opinion, she said " it was 
a step she did not approve." 

It might be surmised from such declarations, that she was in- 



MISS NORMAN. 11 

capable of personal locomotion, through some original infirmity, 
for instance, such as results from the rickets ; whereas, so far from 
allowing any deficiency on the part of her nurse or parents, in 
putting her to her feet. Miss Norman professed to have the per- 
fect command of all her limbs, and would have felt extremely 
offended at a hint that she could not dance. It was quite 
another weakness than any bodily one which restricted her pro- 
menades, and made her feet almost as useless to her as those of 
the female Chinese. Pride was in fault ; and partly her surname, 
for suggesting to one of her ancestoi-s that he was a descendant 
of William the First of England : a notion which, after turning 
his own head, had slightly crazed those of his successors, who all 
believed, as part and parcel of their inheritance, on the strength 
of the " Norman " and some dubious old pedigree, that the 
Conqueror was their great Progenitor. 

The hereditary arrogance engendered by this imaginary 
distinction, had successively displayed itself by outbreaks of 
different character, according to the temperament of the indi- 
vidual who happened to be head of the family : with Miss Nor- 
man, the last of her line, it took the form of a boast that every 
branch and twig of her illustrious tree had always ridden " in 
their own carriage." I am not quite sure whether she did not 
push this pretension further back than the date of the invention 
of " little houses on wheels " would warrant ; however, it held 
good, in local tradition, for several generations, although the 
family vehicle had gradually dwindled down from an ample 
coach to a chariot, a fly, and, finally, the one-inside sedan-chair 
upon wheels, which the sudden death of Plantagenet left planted 
fifty yards short of the Binn Gate. To glance at the whole set- 
out, nobody would ever have attributed high birth and inherent 



12 HOOD'S OWN. 

gentility to its owner. 'Twas ne\ r of a piece. For once that 
the body was new-painted, the arms were thrice refreshed and 
touched up, till the dingy vehicle, by the glaring comparison, 
looked more ancient than the quarterings. The crest was much 
oftener renewed than the hammer-cloth ; and Humphrey, the 
coachman, evidently never got a new suit all at once. He had 
always old drab to bran-new bright sky-blue plush ; or vice 
versa. Sometimes a hat in its first gloss got the better of its old 
tarnished band ; sometimes the fresh gold lace made the brown 
beaver look still more an antique. The same with the harness 
and the horse, which was sometimes a tall spanking brute, who 
seemed to have outgrown the concern ; at other times, a short 
pony-like animal, who had been put into the shafts by mistake. 
In short, the several articles seemed to belong the more especially 
to Miss Norman because they belonged so little to each other. 
A few minutes made a great change in her possessions ; instead 
of a living horse, hight Plantagenet, she was proprietor of certain 
hundred-weights of dogs'-meat. 

It was just at this moment that I came up with my gig ; and 
knowing something of the lady's character, I pulled up in expecta- 
tion of a scene. Lea\ing my own bay, who would stand as 
steady as a mute at death's door, I proceeded to assist the coach- 
man in extricating his horse ; but the nag of royal hne was stone 
dead: and I accompanied Humphrey to the carriage-door to 
make his report. 

A recent American author has described as an essential attri- 
bute of high birth and breeding in England, a certain sort of 
quakerly composure, in all possible sudden emergencies, such as 
an alarm of the house on fire, or a man falling into a fit by one's 
side : — in fact, the same kind of self-command which Pope praises 



MISS NORMAN. 13 

in a lady who is " mistress of herself, though china fall." In this 
particular Miss Norman's conduct justified her pretensions. She 
was mistress of hei'self, though her horse fell. She did not start 
— exclaim — put her head out of the window, or even let down 
the front glass : she only adjusted herself more exactly in the 
middle of the seat, drew herself bolt upright, and fixed her eyes 
on the back of the coach-box. In this posture Humphrey found 
her. 

" If you please, Ma'am, Planty-ginit be dead." The lady ac- 
quiesced with the smallest nod ever made. 

" I've took oflf the collar, and the bitt out, and got un out 
o' harness entirely ; but he be as unanimate as his own shoes ;'* 
and the informant looked earnestly at the lady to observe the 
effect of the communication. But she never moved a muscle; 
and honest Humphrey was just shutting the coach-door, to 
go and finish the laying out of the corpse, when he was recalled. 

"Humphrey!" 

" What's your pleasure. Ma'am ? " 

" Remember, another time " 

"Yes, Ma'am." 

" When a horse of mine is deceased " 

" Yes, Ma'am." 

"Touch your hat." 

The abashed coachman instantly paid up the salute in arrear. 
Unblest by birthright with self-possession, he had not even the 
advantage of experience in the first families, where he might have 
learned a little from good example : he was a raw uncouth country 
servant, with the great merit of being cheap, whom Miss Norman 
had undertaken to educate ; but he was still so far from profi- 
cient, that in the importance of breaking the death to his mistress, 



14 HOOD'S OWN. 

he had omitted one of those minor tokens of respect which she 
always rigorously enacted. 

It was now my own turn to come forward, and as deferentially 
as if she had been indeed the last of the Conqueror's Normandy 
pippins, I tendered a seat in my chaise, which she tacitly 
declined, with a gracious gesture of head and hand. 

" If you please, Ma'am," said Humphrey, taking care to touch 
his hat, and shutting his head into the carriage so that I might 
not overhear him, " he's a respectable kind of gentleman enough, 
and connected with some of the first houses." 

" The gentleman's name ? " 

"To be sure. Ma'am, the gentleman can't help his name," 
answered Humphrey, fully aware of the peculiar prejudices of his 
mistress ; " but it be Huggins." 

"Shut the door." 

It appeared, on explanation with the coachman, that he had 
mistaken me for a person in the employ of the opulent firm of 
Naylor and Co., whose province it was to travel throughout 
Britain with samples of hardware in the box-seat of his gig. I 
did not take the trouble to undeceive him, but determining to see 
the end of the affair, I affected to hope that the lady would change 
her mind ; and accordingly I renewed, from time to time, my 
offer of accommodation, which was always stiffly declined. After 
a tolerably long pause on all sides, my expectation was excited by 

the appearance of the W coach coming through the Binn 

Gate, the only public vehicle that used the road. At sight of the 
dead horse, the driver, (the noted Jem Wade) pulled up — 
alighted — and standing at the carriage-door with his hat off, as if 
ho knew his customer, made an offer of his services. But Miss 
Norman, more dignified than ever, waived him off with her hand. 



MISS NORMAJS. 15 

Jem became more pressing, and the lady more rigid. "She 
never rode," she condescended to say, " in public vehicles." Jem 
entreated again ; but *' she was accustomed to be driven by her 
own coachman." It was in vain that in answer he praised the 
quietness of his team, the safety of his patent boxes, besides pro- 
mising the utmost steadiness and sobriety on his own part. Miss 
Norman still looked perseveringly at the back of her coach-box ; 
which, on an unlucky assurance that " he would take as much 
care of her as of his own mother," she exchanged for a steady 
gaze at the side-window, opposite to the coachman, so long as he 
remained in the presence. 

" By your leave. Ma'am," said Humphrey, putting his hand to 
his hat, and keeping it there, " Mr. Wade be a very civil-spoken 
careful whip, and his coach loads very respectable society. 
There's Sir Vincent Ball on the box." 

" If Sir Vincent chooses to degrade himself, it is no rule for 
we,", retorted the lady, without turning her head ; when, lo ! Sir 
Vincent appeared himself, and pohtely endeavoured to persuade 
her out of her prejudices. It was useless. Miss Norman's 
ancestors had one and all expressed a very decided opinion 
against stage-coaches, by never getting into one ; and " she 
did not feel disposed to disgrace a line longer than common, 
by riding in any carriage but her own." Sir Vincent bowed 
and retreated. So did Jem Wade, without bowing, fervently 
declaring "he would never do the civil thing to the old female 
sex again ! " 

The stage rattled away at an indignant gallop ; and we were 
left once more to our own resources. By way of passing the 
time, I thrice repeated my offers to the obdurate old maiden, and 
endured as many rebuffs. I was contemplating a fourth trial. 



16 HOOD'S OWN. 

when a signal was made from the carriage-window, awd Hum- 
phrey, hat in hand, opened the door. 

" Procm-e me a post chaise." 

" A po-shay ! " echoed Humphrey, but, Mke an Irish echo, with 
some variation from his original — " Lord help ye, Ma'am, there 
bean't such a thing to be had ten miles round — no, not for love 
nor money. Why, bless ye, it be election time, and there bean't 
coach, cart, nor dog-barrow, but what be gone to it ! " 

" No matter," said the mistress, drawing herself up with an air 
of lofty resignation. " I revoke my order ; for it is far, very far, 
from the kind of riding that I prefer. And Humphrey " 

" Yes, Ma'am." 

" Another time — " 

"Yes, Ma'am." 

" Remember once for all — " 

"Yes, Ma'am." 

" I do not choose to be blest, or the Lord to help me." 

Another pause in our proceedings, during which a company of 
ragged boys, who had been black-beriying, came up, and planted 
themselves, with every symptom of vulgar curiosity, around the 
carriage. Miss Norman had now no single glass through which 
she could look without encountering a group of low-life faces star- 
ing at her with all their might. Neither could she help hearing 
some such shocking ill-bred remarks as, " Vy don't the frizzle- 
vigged old Guy get into the gemman's drag ? " Still the pride 
of the Normans sustained her. She seemed to draw a sort of 
supplementary neck out of her bosom, and sat more rigidly erect 
than ever, occasionally favouring the circle, like a mad bull at bay, 
with a most awful threatening look, accompanied ever by the 
same five words : 



MISS NORMAN. 17 

"I CHOOSE to be alone." 

It is easy to say choose, but more difficult to have one's choice. 
The black-berry boys chose to remain ; and in reply to each conge, 
only proved by a general grin how very much teeth are set 
off to advantage by purple mouths. I confess I took pity on 
the pangs even of unwarrantable pride, and urged my pro- 
posal again with some warmth ; but it was repelled with absolute 
scorn. 

" Fellow, you are insolent." 

" Quis Deus vult perdere," thought I, and I determined to let 
her take her fate, merely staying to mark the result. After a 
tedious interval, in which her mind had doubtless looked abroad 
as well as inward, it appeared that the rigour of the condition, as 
to riding only in her own carriage, had been somewhat relaxed to 
meet the exigency of the case. A fresh tapping at the window 
summoned the obsequious Humphrey to receive orders. 

" Present my comphments at the Grove — and the loan of the 
chariot will be esteemed a favour." 

" By your leave, Ma'am, if I may speak — " 

" You may wo<." 

Humphrey closed the door, but remained for a minute gazing 
on the panel, at a blue arm, with a red carving-knife in its hand, 
defending a black and white rolling-pin. If he meditated any 
expostulation, he gave it up, and proceeded to drive away the 
boys, one of whom was astride on the dead Plantagenet, a second 
grinning through his collar, and two more .preparing to play at 
horses with the reins. It seemed a strange mode enough that he 
took to secure the harness, by hanging it, collar and all, on his 
own back and shoulders ; but by an aside to me, he explained the 
mystery, in a grumble. 



18 HOOD'S OWN. 

"It be no use in the world. I see the charrot set off for 
Lonnon. I shan't go com^Mmendng no Grove. I'se hang about 
a bit at the George, and com-pMment a pint o' beer." 

Away he went, intending, no doubt, to be fully as good as his 
word ; and I found the time grow tedious in his absence. I had 
almost made up my mind to follow his example, when hope 
revived at the sound of wheels ; and up came a tax-cart, carrying 
four insides, namely, two well-gi-own porkers, Master Bardell the 
pig-butcher, and his foreman Samuel Slark, or, as he was more 
commonly called, Sam the Sticker. They were both a trifle " the 
worse for hquor," if such a phrase might honestly be applied to 
men who were only a little more courageous, more generous, and 
civil and obliging to the fair sex, than their wont when perfectly 
sober. The Sticker, especially — in his most temperate moments 
a perfect sky-blue-bodied, red-faced, bowing and smirking pattern 
of politeness to females, was now, under the influence of good ale, 
a very Sir Calidore, ready to comfort and succour distressed 
damsels, to fight for them, live or die for them, with as much of 
the chivalrous spirit as remains in our times. They inquired, 
and I explained in a few words the lady's dilemma, taking care 
to forewarn them, by relating the issue of my own attempts in 
her behalf. 

" Mayhap you warn't half purhte or pressing enough," ob- 
served Sam, with a side wink at his master. " It an't a bit of 
a scrape, and a civil word, as will get a strange lady up into a 
strange gemman's gig. It wants warmth-like, and making on 
her feel at home. Only let me alone with her, for a persuader, 
and I'll have her up in our cart — my master's that is to say — 
afore you can see whether she has feet or hoofs." 

In a moment the speaker was at the carriage-door, stroking 



MISS NORMAN. 19 

down his sleek forelocks, bowing, and using his utmost elo- 
quence, even to the repeating most of his arguments twice over. 
She would be perfectly safe, he told her, sitting up between him 
and master, and quite pleasant, for the pigs would keep them- 
selves to themselves at the back of the cart, and as for the horse, 
he was nothing but a, good one, equal to twelve mile an hour — 
with much more to the same purpose. It was quite unneces- 
sary for Miss Norman to say she had never ridden in a cart with 
two pigs and two butchers ; and she did not say it. She merely 
turned away her head from the man, to be addressed by the 
master, at the other window, the glass of which she had just let 
down for a little air. " A taxed cart, Madam," he said, " mayn't 
be exactly the welycle, accustomed to, and so forth ; but thereby, 
considering respective ranks of Ufes, why, the more honour done 
to your humbles, which, as I said afore, will take every care, and 
observe the respectful ; likewise in distancing the two hogs. 
Whereby, every thing considered, namely, necessity and so forth, 
I will make so bold as hope. Madam, excusing more pressing, and 
the like, and dropping cerempny for the time being, you will em- 
brace us at once, as you shall be most heartily welcome to, and 
be considered, by your humbles, as a favour besides." 

The sudden drawing-up of the window, so violently as to 
shiver the glass, showed sufficiently in what light Miss Norman 
viewed Master Bardell's behaviour. It was an unlucky smash, 
for it afforded what the tradesman would have called " an advan- 
tageous opening" for pouring in a fresh stream of eloquence ; and 
the Sticker, who shrewdly estimated the convenience of the breach, 
came round the back of the carriage, and as junior counsel " fol- 
lowed on the same side." But he took nothing by the motion. 
The lady was invincible, or, as the discomfited pair mutually 



20 HOOD'S OWN. 

agreed, " as hard for to be convinced into a cart, as any thing on 
four legs." The blackberry boys had departed, the evening began 
to close in, and no Humphrey made his appearance. The 
butcher's horse was on the fret, and his swine grumbled at the 
delay. The master and man fell into consultation, and favoured 
me afterwards with the result, the Sticker .being the orator. It 
was man's duty, he said, to look after women, pretty or ugly, 
young or old ; it was what we all came into the world to do, 
namely, to make ourselves comfortable and agreeable to the fair 
sex. As for himself, purtecting females was his nature, and he 
should never lie easy agin, if so be he left the lady on the road ; 
and providing a female wouldn't be purtected with her own free 
will, she ought to be forced to, like any other live beast unsensible 
of its own good. Them was his sentiments, and his master fol- 
lowed 'em up. They knowed Miss Norman, name and fame, and 
was both well-known respectable men in their hues, and I might 
ax about for their characters. Whereby, supposing I approved, 
they'd have her, right and tight, in their cart, afore she felt her- 
self respectfully off her legs. 

Such were the arguments and the plan of the bull-headed paii. 
I attempted to reason with them, but my consent had clearly 
been only asked as a compliment. The lady herself hastened the 
catastrophe. Whether she had overheard the debate, or the 
amount of long pent-up emotion became too overwhelming for its 
barriers, I know not, but Pride gave way to Nature, and a short 
hysteric scream proceeded from the carriage. Miss Norman was 
in fits ! We contrived to get her seated on the step of the vehi- 
cle, where the butchers supported her, fanning her with their 
hats, whilst I ran off to a little pool near at hand for some cold 
water. It was the errand only of some four or five minutes, but 



MISS NORMAN. 21 

when I returned, the lady, only half conscious, had been caught 
up, and there she sat, in the cart, right and tight, between the 
two butchers, instead of the two Salvages, or Griffins, or whatever 
they were, her hereditary supporters. They were already on the 
move. I jumped into my own gig, and put my horse to his 
speed ; but I had lost my start, and when I came up with them, 

they were already galloping into W . Unfortunately her 

residence was at the further end of the town, and thither I saw 
her conveyed, struggling in the bright blue, and somewhat greasy, 
arms of Sam the Sticker, screaming in concert with the two swine, 
and answered by the shouts of the whole rabblement of the place, 
who knew Miss Korman quite as well, by sight, as " her own 
carriage !" 



22 




OVKR THE WAY, 



(DDBr tjiB JSutt 



" I sat over against a window where there stood a pot with very pretty flowers ; 
and had my eyes fixed on it, when on a sudden the window opened, and a young 
lady appeared whose beauty struck me." — Arabian Nights, 



Alas ! the flames of an unhappy lover 
About my heart and on my vitals prey ; 
I've caught a fever that I can't get over, 
Over the way ! 

Oh ! why are eyes of hazel ? noses Grecian? 
I've lost my rest by night, my peace by day, 
For want of some brown Holland or Venetian, 
Over the way. 



OVER THE WAY. 23 

I've gazed too often, till my heart's as lost 
As any needle in a stack of hay : 
Crosses belong to love, and mine is crossed 
Over the way ! 

I cannot read or write, or thoughts relax — 
Of what avail Lord Althorp or Earl Grey 1 
They cannot ease me of my window-tax 
Over the way ! 

Even on Sunday my devotions vary, 
And from St. Bennet Fink they go astray 
To dear St. Mary Overy — the Mary 
Over the way ! 

Oh ! if my godmother were but a fairy, 
With magic wand, how I would beg and pray 
That she would change me into that canary 
Over the way ! 

I envy every thing that's near Miss Lindo, 
A pug, a poll, a squirrel or a jay — 
Blest blue-bottles ! that buz about the window 
Over the way ! 

Even at even, for there be no shutters, 
I see her reading on, from grave to gay, 
Some tale or poem, till the candle gutters, 
Over the way ! 

And then — oh ! then — while the clear waxen taper 
Emits, two stories high, a starlike ray, 
I see twelve auburn curls put into paper 
Over the way ! 

But how breathe unto her my deep regards, 
Or ask her for a whispered ay or nay, — 
Or offer her my hand, some thirty yards 
Over the way 1 



24: HOOD'S OWN. 

Cold as the pole she is to my adoring ; — 
Like Captain Lyon, at Repulse's Bay, 
I meet an icy end to my exploring 
Over the way ! 

Each dirty little Savoyard that dances 
She looks on — Punch — or chimney-sweeps in May ; 
Zounds ! wherefore cannot I attract her glances 
Over the way 1 

Half out she leans to watch a tumbling brat, 
Or yelping cur, run over by a dray ; 
But I'm in love — she never pities that ! 
Over the way ! 

I go to the same church — a love-lost labour ; 
Haunt all her walks, and dodge her at the play ; 
She does not seem to know she has a neighbour 
Over the way ! 

At private theatres she never acts ; 
No Crown-and-Anchor balls her fancy sway ; 
She never visits gentlemen with tracts 
Over the way ! 

To billets-doux by post she shows no fa- our— 
In short, there is no plot that I can lay 
To break my winTiow-pains to my ensl;!\ -i 
Over the way ! 

I play the flute — she heeds not my chromatics — 
No friend an introduction can purvey ; 
I vdsh a fire would break out in the attics 
Over the way ! 

My wasted form ought of itself to touch her ; 
My baker feels my appetite's decay ; 
And as for butcher's meat — oh ! she's my butcher 
Over the way ! 



OVER THE WAY. 25 

At beef I turn ; iit lamb or veal 1 pout, 
I never ring now to bring up the tray ; 
My stomach grumbles at my dining out 
Over the way ! 

I'm weary of my life ; without regret . 
I could resign this miserable clay 
To lie within that box of mignonette 
Over the way ! 

I've fitted bullets to my pistol-bore ; 
I've vowed at times to rush where trumpets bray, • 
Quite sick of number one — and number four 
Over the way ! 

Sometimes my, fancy builds up castles airy, 
Sometimes it only paints a ferme ornee, 
A horse — a cow — six fowls — a pig — and Mary, 
Over the way ! 

Sometimes I dream of her in bridal white, 
Standing before the alter, like a fay ; 
Sometimes of balls, and neighbourly invite 
Over the way ! 

I've coo'd with her in dreams, like any turtle, 
I've snatch'd her from the Clyde, the Tweed, and Tay ; 
Thrice I have made a grove of that one myrtle 
Over the way ! 

Thrice I have rowed her in a fairy shallop. 
Thrice raced to Gretna in a neat " po-shay," 
And show^er'd crowns to make the horses gallop 
Over the way ! 

And thrice I've started up from dreams appalling 
Of killing rivals in a bloody fray — 
There is a young man very fond of calling 
Over the way ! 



26 HOOD'S OWN. 

Oh ! happy man — above all kings in glory, 
Whoever in her ear may say his say, 
And add a tale of love to that one story 
Over the vi^ay ! 

Nabob of Arcot — Despot of Japan — 
Sultan of Persia — Emperor of Cathay — 
Much rather would I be the happy man 
Over the way ! 

With such a lot my heart would be in clover- 
But what — O horror ! — what do I survey ! 
Postilions and white favours ! — all is over 
Over the way ! 



27 



a ttiln frnm a 3Market dpartontr tn tljt imriiitt( 
nf tb Inrtirultnrnl Inrirfit. 

Sir, 

The Satiety having Bean pleasd to Complement Me before I 
beg Leaf to he before Them agin as follows in particuUers witch 
I hop They will luck upon with a Sowth Aspic. 

Sir — last year I paid my Atentions to a Tater & the Satiety 
was pleasd to be gratifid at the Innlargement of my Kidnis. 
This ear I have turnd my Eyes to Gozberris. — I am happy to 
Say I have allmost sucksidid in Making them too Big for Bottlin. 
I beg to Present sum of itch kind — Pleas obsarve a Green Goose 
is larger in Siz then a Red Goosebry. Sir as to Cherris my 
atention has Bean cheafly occupid by the Black Arts. Sum of 
them are as big as Crickt Balls as will be seen I send a Sample 
tyed on a Wauking-stick. I send lickwise a Potle of stray ber- 
ris witch I hop will reach. They air so large as to object to lay 
more nor too in a Bed. Also a Potle of Hobbies and one of my 
new Pins, of a remaj-kable sharp flavior. I hop they wdll cum 
to Hand in time to be at your Feat. Respective Black red & 
White Currency I have growd equely Large, so as one Bunch is 
not to be Put into a Galley Pot without jamming. My Pitches 
has not ben Strong, and their is no Show on My Walls of the 
Plumb line. Damsins will Be moor Plentifle & their is no Want 
of common Bullies about Lunnon. Please inform if propper to 
classify the Slow with the creepers. 

Concerning Graps I have bin reccommanded by mixing Wines 
with Warter Mellons, the later is improved in its juice — but have 
douts of the fack. Of the Patgonian Pickleing Coucumber, I 



I 



28 HOOD'S OWN. 

hav maid Trial of, and have hops of Growing one up to Markit 
by sitting one End agin my front dore. On account of its Prog- 
gressiveness I propos caUiug it Pickleus Perriginatus if Aproved of. 

Sir, about Improving the common Stocks. — Of Haws I have 
some hops but am disponding about my Hyps. I have quite 
faled in cultuvating them into Cramberris. I have allso atempt- 
ed to Mull Blackberis, but am satisfid them & the Mulberris is of 
diferent Genius. Pleas observe of Aples I have found a GrafFt 
of the common Crab from its Straglin sideways of use to Hispal- 
liers. I should lick to be infourmd weather Scotch Granite is a 
variety of the Pom Granite & weather as sum say so pore a 
frute, and Nothing but Stone. 

Sir, — My Engine Corn has been all eat up by the Burds 
namely Rocks and Ravines. In like manner I had a full Shew 
of Pees but was distroyed by the Sparers. There as bean grate 
Mischef dun beside by Entymollogy — in some parts a complet 
Patch of Blight. Their has bean a grate Deal too of Robin by 
boys and men picking aud stealing but their has bean so many 
axidents by Steel Traps I don't hke setting on 'em. 

Sir I partickly wish the Satiety to be called to consider the 
Case what follows, as I think mite be maid Transaxtionable in 
the next Reports. — 

My Wif had a Tomb Cat that dyd. Being a torture Shell and 
a Grate feverit, we had Him berrid in the Guardian, and for the 
sake of inrichment of the Mould I had the carks deposeted under 
the roots of a Gosberry Bush. The Frute being up till then of 
the smooth kind. But the next Seson's Frute after the Cat was 
berrid, The Gozberris was all hairy. — & moor Remarkable the 
Catpilers of the same bush, was All of the same hairy Discrip- 
tion. I am Sir Your humble servant Thomas Frost. 



29 



" I really take it very kind, 
This visit, Mrs. Skinner ! 
I have not seen you such an age — 
(The wretch has come to dinner !) 

" Your daughters, too, what loves of girls — 
What heads for painter's easels ! 
Come here and kiss the infant, dears, — 
(And give it p'rhaps the measles !) 

" Your charming boys I see are home 
From Reverend Mr. Russel's ; 
'Tvvas very kind to bring them both, — 
(What boots for ray new Brussels !) 

" What ! little Clara left at home ? 
Well now I call that shabby : 
I should have lov'd to kiss her so, — 
^ (A flabby, dabby, babby !) 

" And Mr. S., I hope he's well, 
Ah ! though he lives so handy, 
He never now drops in to sup, — 
(The better for our brandy !) 

" Come, take a seat — 1 long to hear 
About Matilda's marriage ; 
You're come of course to spend the day ! — 
(Thank Heav'n, I hear the carriage !) 

" What ! must you go ? next time I hope 
You'll give me longer measure ; 
Nay — I shall see you down the stairs — 
(With most uncommon pleasure !) 



30 



HOOD'S OWPi. 



'' Good-bye ! good-bye ! remember all, 
Next time you'll take your dinners ! 
(Now, David, mind I'm not at home 
In future to the Skinners ! ") 




A MODERATE INCOME. 



31 




THE SUBLIME AND THE RIDICULOUS. 



€^t f urisji lUtmlntinn 



** From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step." 



Alarming news from the country/ — awful insurrection at Stoke 
Pogis — The Military called out — Flight of the Mayor. 
We are concerned to state, that accounts were received in town 
at a late hour last night, of an alarming state of things at Stoke 
Pogis. Nothing private is yet made public ; but report speaks 
of very serious occurrences. The n v. ruber of killed is not 
known, as no despatches have been received. 



32 HOOD'S OWN. 

Further Particulars, 

Notliing is known yet ; papers have been received down to 
the 4th of November, but they are not up to anything. 

Further further Particulars. ( Private Letter. ) 

It is scarcely possible for you, my dear Charles, to conceive the 
difficulties and anarchical manifestations of turbulence, which 
threaten and disturb your old birth-place, poor Stoke Pogis. To 
the reflecting mind, the circumstances which hourly transpire 
afford ample food for speculation and moral reasoning. To see 
the constituted authorities of a place, however mistaken or mis- 
guided by erring benevolence, plunging into a fearful struggle 
with an irritated, infuriated, and I may say, armed populace, is a 
sight which opens a field for terrified conjecture. I look around 
me with doubt, agitation, and dismay ; because, whilst I venerate 
those to whom the sway of a part of a state may be said to be 
intrusted, I cannot but yield to the conviction that the abuse of 
power must be felt to be an ovei-step of authority in the best in- 
tentioned of the Magistracy. This even you will allow. Being 
on the spot, my dear Charles, an eye-witness of these fearful 
scenes, I feel how impossible it is for me to give you any idea of 
the prospects which surround me. To say that I think all will 
end well, is to trespass beyond the confines of hope ; but whilst 
I admit that there is strong ground for apprehending the worst, 
I cannot shut my eyes to the conviction, that if firm measures, 
tempered with concession, be resorted to, it is far from being out 
of the pale of probability that serenity may be re-established. 
In hazarding this conclusion, how^ever, you must not consider me 
as at all forgetting the responsibilities which attach to a decidedly 
formed opinion. Oh, Charles ! you who are in the quiet of Lon- 



THE PARISH REVOLUTION. 33 

don, can little dream of the conflicting elements which form the 
storm of this devoted village. I fear you will be wearied with 
all these details ; but I thought at this distance, at which you 
are from me, you would wish me to run the risk of wearying 
you rather than omit any of the interesting circumstances. Let 
Edward read this ; his heart, which I know beats for the Parish, 
will bleed for us. I am, &c. 

H. J. P. 
P. S. — Nothing further has yet occurred, but you shall hear 
from me again to-morrow. 

Another Account. 

Symptoms of disunion have for some time past prevailed be- 
tween the authorities of Stoke Pogis, and a part of -the inhabi- 
tants. The primum mobile or first mobbing, originated in an 
order of the Mayor's, that all tavern doors should shut at eleven. 
Many complied, and shut, but the door of the Rampant Lion 
openly resisted the order. A more recent notice has produced a 
new and more dangerous irritation on our too combustible popu- 
lation. A proclamation against Guy Fauxes and Fireworks 
was understood to be in preparation, by command of the chief 
Magistrate. If his Worship had listened to the earnest and pru- 
dential advice of the rest of the bench, the obnoxious placard 
would not have been issued till the 6th, but he had it posted up 
on the 4th, and by his precipitation has plunged Stoke Pogis 
into a convulsion, that nothing but Time's soothing syrup can 
alleviate. 

From Another Quarter. 

We are all here in the greatest alarm ! a general rising of the 

inhabitants took place this morning, and thev have continued in a 

2-^ 



34: HOOD'S OWN. 

disturbed state ever since. Everybody is in a bustle and indicat- 
ing some popular movement. Seditious cries are heard ! the 
bell-man is going his rounds, and on repeating " God save the 
King !" is saluted with " Hang the crier I" Organised bands of 
boys are going about collecting sticks, &c., whether for bamcades 
or bonfires is not known ; many of them singing the famous 
Gunpowder Hymn, " Pray remember," &c. These are features 
that remind us of the most inflammable times. Several strangers 
of suspicious gentility arrived here last night, and privately en- 
gaged a barn ; they are now busily distributing hand-bills amongst 
the crowd : surely some homble tragedy is in preparation ! 

A later account. 
The alarm increases. Several families have taken flight by the 
wagon, and the office of Mr. Stewart, the overseer, is besieged 
by persons desirous of being passed to their own parish. He 
seems embarrassed and irresolute, and returns evasive answers. 
The worst fears are entertaining. 

JF'res h In telligence. 

The cause of the ovei-seer's hesitation has transpired. The 
pass-cart and horse have been lent to a tradesman, for a day's 
pleasure, and are not returned. Nothing can exceed the indigna- 
tion of the paupers ! they are all pouring towards the poor-house, 
headed by Timothy Guubins, a desperate drunken character, but 
the idol of the Workhouse. The constables are retiring before 
this formidable body. The following notice is said to be posted 
up at the Town-hall : " Stick No Bills." 

Eleven o'clock. 

The mob have proceeded to outrage — the poor poor-house has 
not a whole pane of glass in its whole frame ! The Magistrates, 



THE PARISH REVOLUTION. 35 

with Mr. Higginbottom at their head, have agreed to call out the 
miHtary ; and he has sent word that he will come as soon as he 
has put on his uniform. 

A terrific column of little boys has just run do^vn the High 
street, it is said to see a fight at the Green Dragon. There is an 
immense crowd in the Market-Place. Some of the leading shop- 
keepers have had a conference with the Mayor, and the people 
are now being informed by a placard of the result. Gracious 
heaven ! how opposite is it to the hopes of all moderate men — 
" The Mare is Hobstinate — He is at the Roes and Crown — But 
refuses to treat." 

Twelve o^clocTc. 

The military has arrived, and is placed under his own com- 
mand. He has marched himself in a body to the market-place 
and is now drawn up one deep in front of the Pound. The mob 
are in possession of the walls, and have chalked upon them the 
following proclamation : " Stokian Pogians, be firm ! stick up for 
bonfires ! stand to your squibs 1" 

Quarter past Twelve. 

Mr. Wigsby, the Master of the Free School, has declared 
on the side of Liberty, and has obtained an audience of the 
Mayor. He is to return in fifteen minutes for his Worship's 
decision. 

Half past Twelve. 

During the interval, the JMayor has sworn in two special con- 
stables, and will concede nothing. When the excitement of the 
mob was represented to him by Mr. Wigsby, he pointed to a 
truncheon on a table, and answered, " They may do their wors- 
est." The exasperation is awful— the most frightful cries are ut- 
tered, " Huzza fur Guys ! Gubbins for ever ! and no Higgin- 



36 HOOD'S OWIjf. 

bottom !" The military has been ordered to clear the streets, but 
his lock is not flinty enough, and his gun refuses to fire on the 

people. 

******** 

The constables have just obtained a slight advantage ; they 
made a charge altogether, and almost upset a Guy. On the left 
hand side of the way they have been less successful ; Mr. Hug- 
gins the beadle attempted to take possession of an important 
street post, but was repulsed by a boy with a cracker. At the 
same moment Mr. Blogg, the churchwarden, was defeated in a 
desperate attempt to force a passage up a court. 

One o'clocJc. 

The military always dines at one, and has retreated to the Pig 
and Puncheon. There is a report that the head constable is 
taken with all his staff. 

Two o''clocJc. 

A flying watchman has just informed us that the police are 
victorious on all points, and the same has been confirmed by a 
retreating constable. He states that the Pound is full — Gubbins 
in the stocks, and Dobbs in the cage. That the whole mob 
would have been routed, but for a very corpulent man, who 
raUied them on running away. 

Half past Three. 

The check sustained by the mob proves to have been a reverse, 
the constables are the suflferers. The cage is chopped to faggots, 
we hav'nt a pound, and the stocks are rapidly falling. Mr. 
Wigsby has gone again to the Mayor with overtures, the people 
demand the release of Dobbs and Gubbins, and the demolition of 
the stocks, the pound, and the cage. As these are already de- 
stroyed, and Gubbins and Dobbs are at large, it is confidently 



THE PARISH REVOLUTION. 37 

hoped by all moderate men that his Worship will accede to the 
terms. 

Four o'clock. 

The Mayor has rejected the terms. It is confidently affirmed 
that after this decision, he secretly ordered a post-chaise, and has 
set off with a pair of post horses as fast as they can't gallop. A 
meeting of the principal tradesmen has taken place, and the 
butcher, the baker, the grocer, the cheesemonger, and the publi- 
can, have agreed to compose a Provisional Government, In the 
mean time the mob are loud in their joy, — they are letting off 
squibs and crackers, and rockets, and devils, in all directions, and 
quiet is completely restored. 

We subjoin two documents, — one containing the articles drawn 
up by the Provisional Government and Mr. Wigsby ; the other, 
the genuine narrative of a spectator. 
Dear Charles, 

The events of the last few hours, since I closed my minute nar- 
ration, are pregnant with fate ; and no words that I can utter on 
paper will give you an idea of their interest. Up to the hour at 
which I closed my sheet, anxiety regulated the movement of 
every watchful bosom ; but since then, the approaches to tran- 
quillity have met with barriei*s and interruptions. To the medi- 
tative mind, these popular paroxysms have their desolating deduc- 
tions. Oh, my Charles, I myself am almost sunk into an Agi- 
tator — so much do we take the colour from the dye in which our 
reasoning faculties are steeped. I stop the press — yes, Charles — 
I stop the press of circumstances to say, that a dawn of the Pa- 
cific is gleaming over the Atlantic of our disturbances; and I 
am enabled, by the kindness of Constable Adams, to send you a 
Copy of the Preliminaries, which are pretty well agreed upon, 



38 HOOD'S OWN. 

and only wait to be ratified. I close my letter in haste. That 
peace may descend on the Olive Tree of Stoke Pogis, is the 
earnest prayer of, &c. 

H. J. P. 

P. S. — Show the Articles to Edward. He will, with his 
benevolence, at once see that they are indeed precious articles for 
Stoke Pogis. 

CONDITIONS. 

1. That for the future, widows in Stoke Pogis shall be allowed 
their thirds, and Novembers their fifths. 

2. That the property of Guys shall be held inviolable, and 
their persons respected. 

8. That no arson be allowed, but all bonfires shall be burnt by 
the common hangman. 

4. That every rocket shall be allowed an hour to leave the 
place. 

5. That the freedom of Stoke Pogis be presented to Madame 
Hengler, in a cartridge-box. 

6. That the military shall not be called out, uncalled for. 

v. That the parish beadle, for the time being, be authorised to 
stand no nonsense. 

8. That his Majesty's mail be permitted to pass on the night 
in question. 

9. That all animosities be buried in oblivion, at the Parish 
expense. 

10. That the ashes of old bonfires be never raked up. 

( Wagstaff, High Constable. 



THE PARISH REVOLUTION. 39 

The JVarrotiv of a High Whitness who seed every Think 
proceed out of a Back-winder up Fore Fears to Mrs. 
Humphris. 

Mrs. Humphris ! Littel did I Dram, at my Tim of Life, to 
see Wat is before me. The hole Parrish is Throne into a panni- 
kin ! The Revelations has reeched Stock Poggis — and the 
people is riz agin the Kings rain, and all the Pours that be. All 
this Blessed Mourning Mrs. Griggs and Me as bean sitting 
abscondingly at the tiptop of the Hows crying for lowness. We 
have lockd our too selves in the back Attical Rome, and nothing 
can come up to our Hanksiety. Some say it is hke the Frentch 
Plot — sum say sum thing moor arter the Dutch Patten is on the 
car-pit, and if so we shall Be flored hke Brussels. Well, I never 
did like them Brown lioUand brum gals ! 

Our Winder overlooks all the High Street, xcept jest ware 
Mister Higgins jutts out Behind. What a prospectus ! — All 
riotism and hubbub. — There is a lowd speechifying round the 
Gabble end of the Hows. The Mare is arranging the Populous 
from one of his own long winders. — Poor Man ! — for all his fine 
goold Cheer, who wood Sit in his shews ! 

1 hobserve Mr. Tuder's bauld Hed uncommon hactiv in the 
Mobb, and so is Mister Wagstaff the Constable, considdering his 
rummatiz has only left one Harm disaffected to shew his loyal- 
ness with. He and his men air staving the mobbs Heds to make 
them Suppurate. They are trying to Custardise the Ringleders 
But as yet hav Captivated Noboddy. There is no end to acci- 
dence. Three unsensible boddies are Carrion over the way on 
Three Cheers, but weather N ay bres or Gyes, is dubbious. Master 
Gollop too, is jest gon By on one of his Ants Shuters, with a 
Bunch of exploded Squibs gone off in liis Trowsirs. It makes 



40 HOOD'S OWN. 

Mrs G. and Me tremble like Axle trees, for our Hone nevvies. 
Wile we ware at the open Winder they sliped out. With sich 
Broils in the Street who nose what Scraps they may git into. 
Mister J. is gon off with his muskitry to militate agin the mobb ; 
and I fear without anny Sand Witches in his Cartrich Box. 
Mi-s. Griggs is in the ISam state of Singularity as meself. Onely 
think, Mrs. H. of two Loan Wiming looken Down on such a 
Heifervesence, and as Hignorant as the unbiggotted Babe of the 
state of our Husbandry ! to had to our Convexity, the Botcher 
has not Bean. No moor as the Backer and We shold here 
Nothing if Mister Higgins handn't hollowed up Fore Storys. 
What news he brakes ! That wicked Wigsby as reflfused to Reed 
the Riot Ax, and the Town Clark is no Schollard ! Isn't that a 
bad Herring ! 

Mrs. Humphi'is ! It is unpossible to throe ones hies from 
one End of Stock Poggis to the other, without grate Pane. 
Nothing is seed but Wivs asking for Huzbinds — nothing is 
heard but childerin looking for Farthers. Mr. Hatband the 
Undertacker as jist bean squibed and obligated for safeness to 
inter his own Hows. Mr. Higgins blames the unflexable Stubble- 
ness of the Mare and says a littel timely Concussion wood have 
been of Preventive Servis. Haven nose ! For my Part I dont 
believe all the Concussion on Hearth wood hav prevented the 
Regolater bein scarified by a Squib and runnin agin the Rockit — - 
or that it could unshatter Pore Master Gollop, or squentch Wider 
Welshis rix of Haze witch is now Flamming and smocking in 
two volumes. The ingins as been, but could not Play for want 
of Pips witch is too often the Case with Parrish inginuity. Wile 
affares are in this friteful Posturs, thank Haven I have one grate 
comfit. Mr. J. is cum back on his legs from Twelve to won 



THE PARISH REVOLUTION. 41 

tired in the extreams with Being a Standing Army, and his Um- 
formity spatterdashed all over. He says his hone saving was 
onely thro leaving His retrenchments. 

Pore Mr. Griggs has cum In after his Wif in a state of grate 
exaggeration. He says the Boys hav maid a Bone Fire of his 
garden fence and Pales upon Pales cant put it out. Severi' 
Shells of a bombastic nater as been picked up in his Back Yard 
and the old Cro's nest as bean Perpetrated rite thi'o by a Rockit. 
We hav sent out the Def Shopman to here wat he can and he 
says there is so Manny Crackers going he dont no witch report to 
Belive, but the Fismongerers has Cotchd and with all his Stock 
compleatly Guttid. The Brazers next door is lickwise in Hashes, — 
but it is hopped he has assurance enuf to cover him All over. — 
They say nothing can save the Dwellins adjourning. O Mrs. H. 
how greatful ought J and I to bee that our hone Premiss and 
propperty is next to nothing ! The effex of the lit on Bildings is 
marvulous. The Turrit of St. Magnum Bonum is quit clear and 
you can tell wat Time it is by the Clock verry planely only it 
stands ! 

The noise is enuf to drive won deleterious ! Too Specious 
Conestabbles is persewing littel Tidmash down the Hi Street and 
Sho grate fermness, but I trembel for the Pelisse. Peple drops 
ki with New News every Momentum. Sum say All is Lost — 
and the town Criar is missin. Mrs. Griggs is quite retched at 
herein five littel Boys is throwd off a spirituous Cob among the 
Catherend Weals. But I hope it wants cobbobboration. 
Another Yuth its sed has had his hies Blasted by sum blowd 
Gun Powder. You Mrs. H. are Patrimonial, and may supose 
how these flying rummers Upsetts a Mothers Sperrits. 

Mrs. Humphris how I envy you that is not tossing on the 



4r2 HOOD'S OWN. 

ragging bellows of these Flatulent Times, but living under a 
Mild Dispotic Govinment in such Sequestrated spots as Lonnon 
and Padington. May you never go thro such Transubstantiation 
as I have been riting in ! Things that stood for Sentries as bean 
removed in a Minuet — and the very effigis of wat was venerablest 
is now burning in Bone Fires. The Worshipfull chaer is emty. 
The Mare as gon off clandestinely with a pare of Hossis, and 
without his diner. They say he complanes that his Corperation 
did not stik to him as it shold have dun But went over to the 
other Side. Pore Sole — in sich a case I dont wunder he lost his 
Stommich. Yisterday he was at the summut of Pour. Them 
that hours ago ware enjoying parrish offiiciousness as been turned 
out of their Dignittis ! Mr. Barber says in futcr all the Perukial 
Authoritis will be Wigs. 

Pray let me no wat his Magisty and the Prim Minestir think 
of Stock Poggis's constitution, and believe me conclusively my 
deer Mrs. Humphris most frendly and trully 

Bridget Jones. 



43 



f ntra— frnra tljt l^nlislj. 



Some months since a young lady was much surprised at receiving, from the Cap- 
tain of a Whaler, a blank sheet of paper, folded in the form of a letter, and duly 
sealed. At last, recollecting the nature of sympathetic ink, she~placed the missive on 
a toasting-fork, and after holding it to the fire for a minute or two, succeeded in 
thawing out the following verses. 



From seventy-two North latitude, 

Dear Kitty, I indite ; 
But first I'd have you understand 

How hard it is to write. 

Of thoughts that breathe and words that burn 

My Kitty, do not think, — 
Before I wrote these very lines, 

I had to melt my ink. 

Of mutual flames and lover's warmth, 

You must not be too nice ; 
The sheet that I am writing^ on 

Was once a sheet of ice! 

The Polar cold is sharp enough 

To freeze with icy gloss 
The genial current of the soul, 

E'en in a " Man of Ross." 

Pope says that letters waft a sigh 

From Indus to the Pole ; 
But here I really wish the post 

Would only " post the coaL^'' 



4:4 HOOD'S OWN. 

So chilly is the Northern blast, 
It blows me through and through ; 

A ton of Wallsend in a note 
Would be a billet-doux ! 

In such a frigid latitude 

It scarce can be a sin, 
Should Passion cool a little, where 

A fury was iced in. 

I'm rather tired of endless snow, 
And long for coals again; 

And would give up a Sea of Ice, 
For some of Lambton's Main. 

I'm sick of dazzling ice and snow, 

The sun itself I hate ; 
So very bright, so very cold, 

Just like a summer grate. 

For opodeldoc I would kneel, 
My chilblains to anoint; 

Kate, the needle of the north 
Has got a freezing point. 

Our food is solids, — ere we put 
Our meat into our crops, 

We take sledge-hammers to our steaks 
And hatchets to our chops. 

So very bitter is the blast, 
So cutting is the air, 

1 never have been warm but once, 

When hugging with a bear. 

One thing I know you'll like to hear, 
Th' effect of Polar snows, 

I've left off snuff— one pinching day — 
From leaving off my nose. 



POEM,— FROM THE POLISH 45 

I have no ear for music now ; 

My ears both left together ; 
And as for dancing, I have cut 

My toes — it's cutting w^eather. 

I've said that you should have my hand, 

Some happy day to come ; 
But, Kate, you only now can wed 

A finger and a thumb. 

Don't fear that any Esquimaux 

Can wean me from my own ; 
The Gii-dle of the Queen of Love 

Is not the Frozen Zone. 

At wives with large estates of snow 

My fancy does not bite ; 
I like to see a Bride — but not 

In such a deal of white. 

Give me for home a house of brick. 

The Kate I love at Kew ! 
A hand unchapped — a merry eye ; 

And not a nose, of blue ! 

To think upon the Bridge of Kew, 

To me a bridge of sighs ; 
Oh, Kate, a pair of icicles 

Are standing in my eyes ! 

God knows if I shall e'er return, 

In comfort to be lull'd ; 
But if I do get back to port. 

Pray let me have it mull'd. 



46 



(0pirTOiin EMhisrBEtBS nf c Irntinitntflfot, 



'My Tables > Meat it is, I set it down ! " 

Hamlet. 



I THINK it was Spring — but not certain I am — 

When my passion began first to work ; 
But I know we were certainly looking for lamb, 

And the season was over for pork. 

'Twas at Christmas, 1 think, when I met with Miss Chase, 
Yes, — for Morris had asked me to dine, — 

And I thought I had never beheld such a face, 
Or so noble a turkey and chine. 

Placed close by her side, it made others quite wild. 

With sheer envy to witness my luck ; 
How she blushed as I gave her some turtle, and smil'd 

As I afterwards offered some duck. 

I looked and I languished, alas, to my cost, 
Through three courses of dishes and meats ; 

Getting deeper in love — but my heart was quite lost. 
When it came to the trifle and sweets ! 

With a rent-roll that told of my houses and land, 

To her parents I told my designs — 
And then to herself I presented my hand, 

With a very fine pottle of pines ! 



EPICUREAN REMINISCENCES. 47 

I asked her to have me for weal or for woe, 

And she did not object in the least; — 
I can't tell the date — but we married, I know, 

Just in time to have game at the feast. 

We went to , it certainly was the sea-side ; 

For the next, the most blessed of morns, 
I remember how fondly I gazed at my bride, 

Silting down to a plateful of prawns. 

O never may mem'ry lose sight of that year, 

But still hallow the time as it ought, 
That season the "grass" was remarkably dear, 

And the peas at a guinea a quart. 

So happy, like hours, all our days seem'd to haste, 

A fond pair, such as poets have drawn. 
So united in heart — so congenial in taste. 

We were both of us partial to brawn ! 

A long life I looked for of bliss with my bride. 

But then Death — I ne'er dreamt about that! 
Oh there's nothing is certain in life, as I cried, 

When my turbot eloped with the cat ! 

My dearest took ill at the turn of the year, 

But the cause no physician could nab ; 
But something it seem'd like consumption, I fear, 

It was just after supping on crab. 

In vain she was doctor'd, in vain she was dosed. 

Still her strength and her appetite pined ; 
She lost relish for what she had relish'd the most. 

Even salmon she deeply declin'd ! 

For months still I linger'd in hope and in doubt. 

While her form it grew wasted and thin ; 
But the last dying spark of existence wont out, 

As the oysters were just coming in ! 



48 HOOD'S OWN. 

She died, and she left me the saddest of men 

To indulge in a widower's moan, 
Oh, I felt all the power of solitude then, 

As I ate my first natives alone ! 

But when I beheld Virtue's friends in their cloaks, 
And with sorrowful crape on their hats, 

O my grief poured a flood ! and the out-of-door folks 
Were all crying — I think it was sprats ! 



49 



" It's a nasty evening," said Mr. Dornton, the stockbroker, 
as he settled himself in the last inside place of the last Fulham 
coach, driven by our old friend Mat — an especial friend in need, 
be it remembered, to the fair sex. 

" I would'nt be outside," said Mr. Jones, another stockbroker, 
" for a trifle." 

" Nor I, as a speculation in options," said Mr. Parsons, another 
frequenter of the Alley. 

" I wonder what Mat is waiting for," said Mr. Tidwell, " for 
we are full, inside and out." 

Mr. Tidwell's doubt was soon solved,— the coach-door opened, 
and Mat somewhat ostentatiously inquired, what indeed he very 
well knew — " I believe every place is took up inside ?" 

" We 're all here," answered Mr. Jones, on behalf of the usual 
complement of old stagers. 

"I told you so. Ma'am," said Mat, to a female who stood 
beside him, but still leaving the door open to an invitation from 
within. However, nobody spoke— on the contrary, I felt Mr. 
Hindmarsh, my next neighbour, dilating himself like the frog in 
the fable. 

" I don't know what I shall do," exclaimed the woman ; " I've 
no where to go to, and it's raining cats and dogs !" 

" You'd better not hang about, anyhow," said Mat, " for you 
may ketch yom- death, — and I'm the last coach, — an't I, Mr. 

Jones ?" 

3 



50 HOOD'S OWN. 

"To be sure you are," said Mr. Jones, rather impatiently; 
" shut the door." 

" I told the lady the gentlemen couldn't make room for her," 
answered Mat, in a tone of apology, — " I'm very sorry, my dear" 
(turning towards the female), " you should have my seat, if you 
could hold the ribbons — but such a pretty one as you ought to 
have a coach of her own." 

He began slowly closing the door. 

" Stop, Mat, stop !" cried Mr. Dornton, and the door quickly 
unclosed again ; " I can't give up my place, for I'm expected 
home to dinner ; but if the lady wouldn't object to sit on my 
knees — " 

" Not the least in the world," answered Mat, eagerly ; " you 
won't object, will you, ma'am, for once in the way, with a mar- 
ried gentleman, and a wet night, and the last coach on the 
road ?" 

" If I thought I shouldn't uncommode," said the lady, preci- 
pitately furling her wet umbrella, which she handed in to one 
gentleman, whilst she favoured another with her muddy pattens. 
She then followed herself, Mat, shutting the door behind her, in 
such a manner as to help her in. " I'm sure I'm obliged for the 
favour," she said, looking round ; " but which gentleman was so 
kind?" 

" It was I who had the pleasure of proposing. Madam," said 
Mr. Dornton : and before he pronounced the last Avord she was 
in his lap, with an assurance that she would sit as lightsome as 
she could. Both parties seemed very well pleased with the 
arrangement; but to judge according to the rules of Lavater, 
the rest of the company were but ill at ease. For my own part, 
I candidly confess I was equally out of humour with myself and 



THE DISCOVERY. 61 

the person who had set me such an example of gallantry. I, 
who had read the lays of the Troubadours — the awards of the 
old " Courts of Love,"— the hves of the "preux Chevaliers"—- 
the history of Sir Charles Grandison — to be outdone in courtesy 
to the sex by a married stockbroker ! How I grudged him the 
honour she conferred upon him — how Penvied his feelings ! 

I did not stand alone, I suspect, in this unjustifiable jealousy ; 
Messrs. Jones Hindmarsh, Tidwell, and Parsons, seemed equally 
disincHned to forgive the chivalrous act which had, as true 
knights, lowered all our crests and blotted our scutcheons, and 
cut off our spurs. Many an unfair jibe was launched at the 
champion of the fair, and when he attemp:^ed to enter into con- 
vei-sation with the lady, he was interrupted by incessant questions 
of "What is stirring in the Alley ?"—" What is doing in Dutch?" 
— " How are the Rentes ?" 

To all these questions Mr. Dornton incontinently returned busi- 
ness-hke answers according to the last Stock Exchange quotations ; 
and he was in the middle of an elaborate enumeration, that so 
and so was very firm, and so and so very low, and this rather 
brisk, and that getting up, and operations, and fluctuations, and 
so forth, when somebody ifiquired about Spanish Bonds. 

" They are looking up, my dear,'' answered Mr. Dornton, 
somewhat abstractedly ; and before the other stockbrokers had 
done.tittering the stage stopped. A bell was rung, and whilst 
Mat stood beside the open coach-door, a staid female in a calash 
and clogs, with a lantern in her hand, came clattering pompously 
down a front garden. 

" Is Susan Pegge come ?" inquired a shrill voice. 
« Yes, I be," replied the lady who had been dry-nursed from 
town ; — " are you, ma'am, number ten, Grove Place ?" 



52 HOOD'S OWN. 

" This is Mr. Dornton's," said the dignified woman in the hood, 
advancing her lantern, — " and — mercy on us ! you're in master's 
lap !" 

- A shout of laughter from five of the inside passengers corrobo- 
rated the assertion, and like a literal cat out of the bag, the ci-de- 
vant lady, forgetting her flmbrella and her pattens, bolted out of 
the coach, and with feline celerity rushed up the garden, and 
down the area, of number ten. 

" Renounce the woman !" said Mr. Dornton, as he scuttled out 
of the stage — " Why the devil didn't she tell me she was the 
new cook ? " 



53 



Ejjtjm^ unit EBii3nii» 



To the Editor of the Comic Annual. 

SiE, — In one of your Annuals you have given insertion to " A 
Plan for Writing Blank Verse in Rhyme ;" but as I have seen 
no regular long poem constructed on its principles, I suppose the 
scheme did not take with the literary world. Under these cir- 
cumstances I feel encouraged to bring forward a novelty of my 
own, and I can only regret that such poets as Chaucer and 
Cottle, Spenser and Hayley, Milton and Pratt, Pope and Pye, 
Byron and Batterbee, should have died before it was invented. 

The great difficulty in verse is avowedly the rhyme. Dean 
Swift says somewhere in his letters, " that a rhyme is as hard to 
find with him as a guinea," — and we all know that guineas are 
proverbially scarce among poets. The merest versifier that ever 
attempted a Valentine must have met with this Orson, some 
untameable savage syllable that refused to chime in with society. 
For instance, what poetical Foxhunter — a contributor to the Sport- 
ing Magazine — has not drawn all the covers of Beynard, Ceynard, 
Deynard, Feynard, Geynard, Heynard, Keynard, Leynard, Mey- 
nard, Neynard, Peynard, Queynard, to find a rhyme for Reynard ? 
The spirit of the times is decidedly against Tithe ; and I know of 
no tithe more oppressive than that poetical one, in heroic 
measure, which requires that every tenth syllable shall pay a 
sound in kind. How often the Poet goes up a hne, only to be 
stopped at the end by an impracticable rhyme, like a bull in a 



54: HOOD'S OWN. 

blind alley ! I have an ingenious medical friend, who might have 
been an eminent poet by this time, but the first line he wrote 
ended in ipecacuanha, and with all his physical and mental power, 
he has never yet been able to find a rhyme for it. 




^^^'^\^^ 



FUSING TITHE. 



The plan I propose aims to obviate this hardship. My system 
is, to take the bull by the horns ; in short, to try at first what 
words will chime, before you go farther and fare worse. To say 
nothing of other advantages, it will at least have one good effect, — 
and that is, to correct the erroneous notion of the would-be poets 
and poetesses of the present day, that the great end of poetry is 
rhyme. I beg leave to present a specimen of verse, which proves 
quite the reveree, and am, Sir, 

Your most obedient servant, 

John Dryden Grubb. 



RHYME AND REASON. 55 

THE DOUBLE KNOCK. 

Rat-tat it went upon the lion's chin, 

" That hat, I know it !" cried the joyful girl ; 

" Summer's it is, I know him by his knock, 

Comers like him are welcome as the day ! 

Lizzy ! go down and open the street-door. 

Busy I am to any one but him. 

Know him you must — he has been often here ; 

Show him up stairs, and tell him I'm alone." 

Quickly the maid went tripping down the stair ; 
Thickly the heart of Rose Matilda beat ; 
" Sure he has brought me tickets for the play — 
Drury — or Covent Garden — darling man I — 
Kemble will play — or Kean who makes the soul 
Tremble ; in Richard or the frenzied Moor — 
Farren, the stay and prop of many a farce 
Barren beside — or Liston, Laughter's Child — 
Kelly the natural, to witness whom 
Jelly is nothing to the public's jam — 
Cooper, the sensible, — and Walter Knowles 
Super, in William Tell — now rightly told. 
Better — perchance, from Andrews, brings a box, 
Letter of boxes for the Italian stage — 
Brocard ! Donzelli ! Taglioni ! Paul ! 
No card, — thank heaven — engages me to night ! 
Feathers, of course, no turban, and no* toque — 
Weather's against it, but I'll go in curls. 
Dearly I dote on white — my satin dress, 
Merely one night — it won't be much the worse — 
Cupid — the New Ballet I long to see — 
Stupid ! why don't she go and ope the door !" 

Glisten'd her eye as the impatient girl 
Listen'd, low bending o'er the topmost stair. 
Vainly, alas ! she listens and she bends, 
Plainly she hears this question and reply. 
" Axes your pardon. Sir, but what d'ye want ?" 
" Taxes," says he, " and shall not call again !" 



56 



ttiUt 



FROM A PARISH CLERK IN BARBADOES TO ONE IN HAMPSHIRE, 
WITH AN ENCLOSURE. 



"Thou mayest conceive, O reader, with what concern I perceived the eyea of the 
congregation fixed upon me."— Memoirs of P. P. 



My DEAR Jedidiah, 

Here I am safe and sound — we^ll in body, and in fine voice 
for my calling — though thousands and thousands of miles, I may 
say, from the old living Threap-Cum-Toddle. Little did I think 
to be ever giving out the Psalms across the Atlantic, or to be 
walking in the streets of Barbadoes, sun-ounded by Blackamoors, 
big and little ; some crying after me, " There him go — look at 
Massa Amen ! "* Poor African wretches ! I do hope, by my 
Lord Bishop's assistance, to instruct many of them, and to teach 
them to have more respect for ecclesiastic dignitaries. 

Through a ludicr6us clerical mischance, not fit for me to men- 
tion, we have preached but once since our arrival. Oh ! Jedidiah, 
how different from the row of comely, sleek, and ruddy plain 
English faces, that used to confront me in the Churchwarden's 
pew, at the old service in Hants, — Mr. Perryman's clean, shining, 
bald head ; Mr. Truman's respectable powdered, and Mr. Cutlet's 
comely and well-combed caxon! — Here, such a set of grinning 

* Some readers may not be aware that in the English [established] 
Church the " Clerk " from his desk under the pulpit, leads the responses, 
and gives out the psalms. 



LETTER. 6T 

sooty faces, that if I had been in any other place, I might have 
fancied myself at a meeting of Master Chimney-sweeps on May- 
Day. You know, Jedidiah, how strange thoughts and things 
will haunt the mind, in spite of one's self, at times the least ap- 
propriate : — the hne that follows " The rose is red, the violet's 
blue," in the old Valentine, I am ashamed to say, came across me 
I know not how often. Then after service, no sitting on a tomb- 
stone for a cheerful bit of chat wdth a neighbour — no invitation to 
dinner from the w^orshipful Churchwardens. The jabber of these 
Niggers is so outlandish or unintelligible, I can hardly say I am 
on speaking terms with any of our parishioners, except Mr. Pom- 
pey, the Governor's black, whose trips to England have made his 
Enghsh not quite so full of Greek as the othei*s. There is one 
thing, however, that is^so great a disappointment of my hopes and 
enjoyments, that I think, if I had foreseen it, I should not have 
come out, even at the Bishop's request. The song in the play- 
book says, you know, " While all Barbadoes' bells do ring ! " — but 
alas, Jedidiah, there is not a ring of bells in the whole island ! — 
You who remember my fondness for that melodious pastime, 
indeed I may say my passion, for a Grandsire Peal of Triple Bob- 
Majoi-s truly pulled, and the changes called by myself, as when I 
belonged to the Great Tom Society of Hampshire Youths, — may 
conceive my regret that, instead of coming here, I did not go out 
to Swan River — I am told they have a Peel there. 

I shall write a longer letter by the Nestor, Bird, which is the 
next ship. This comes by the Lively, Kidd, — only to inform you 
that I arrived here safe and well. Pray communicate the same, with 
my love and duty, to my dear parents and relations, not forgetting 
Deborah and Darius at Porkington, and Uriah at Pigstead. The 
same to Mrs. Pugh, the opener, — Mr. Sexton, and the rest of my 



58 HOOD'S OWN. 

clerical friends. I have no commis>ions at present, except to beg 
that you will deliver the enclosed, which I have written at Mr. 
Pompey's dictation, to his old black fellow servant, at number 45, 
Portland Place. Ask for Agamemnon down the area. If an 
opportunity should likewise offer of mentioning in any quarter 
that might reach the administration, the destitute state of our Bar- 
barian steeples, and belfreys, pray don't omit ; and if, in the mean 
time, you could send out even a set of small handbells, it might 
prove a parochial acquisition as well as to me. 

Dear Jedidiah, 
Your faithful Friend and fellow Clerk, 

Habakkuk Crumpe. 
P. S. — I send Pompey's letter open, for you to read. — You 
will, see what a strange herd of black cattle I am among. 

[the enclosure.] 
I say, Aggy !— 

You remember me? — Yery well. — Runaway Pompey, 
somebody else. Me Governor's Pompey. You remember ? Me 
carry out Governor's piccaninny a walk. Very well. Massa 
Amen and me write this to say the news. Barbadoes all bustle. 
Nigger-mans do nothing but talkee talkee. [^Pompey's rights Jedi- 
diah^ The Bishop is come. Missis Bishop. Miss Bishop — all 
the Bishops. Yery well. The Bishop come in one ship, and him 
wigs come out in other ship. Bishop come one, two, three, 
weeks first. [Ifs too true, Jedidiah^ Him say no wig, no 
Bishop. Massa Amen, you remember, say so too. Yery well. 
Massa Amen ask me every thing about nigger-man, where him 
baptizes in a water. \^So I did^ Me tell him in the sea, in 
the river, any wheres abouts. You remember. Massa Amen 
ask at me again, who 'ficiates. Me tell him de Cayman. [What 



LETTER. 



59 



man, Jedidiah, could he mean ?] Very well. The day before 
tlie other day Bishop come to dinner with Governor and Gover- 
ness, up at the Big House. You remember,^-Missis Bishop too. 
Missis Bishop set him turban afire at a candle, and me put him 
out. [ With a kettle of scalding water, Jedidiah.] Pompey get 



nothing for that. 



Very well. 




I say, Aggy,— You know your Catechism ? Massa Amea 
ask him at me and my wife, Black Juno, sometimes. You re- 
member. Massa Amen say, you give up a Devil? very well. 
Then him say, you give up all work ? very well. Then him say 
again. Black Juno, you give up your Pompeys and vanities ? 
Black Juno shake her head, and say no. Massa Amen say you 
must, and then my wife cry ever so much. [It's a fact, Jedi- 
diah, the black female made this ridiculous mistake:] 



60 HOOD'S OWN. 

Very well. Governor come to you in three months to see the 
King. Pompey too. You remember. Come for me to Black- 
wall. Me bring you some of Governor's rum. Black Juno say, 
tell Massa Agamemnon, he must send some fashions, sometimes. 
You remember ? Black Juno very smart. Him wish for a Bell 
Assembly. [Jedidiak, so do /.] You send him out, you re- 
member ? Very well. 

Massa Amen say write no more now. I say, pray one little 
word more for Agamemnon's wife. Give him good kiss from 
Pompey. [Jedidiah, what a heathenish message /] Black Diana 
a kiss too. You remember ? Veiy well. No more. 



61 



iftBHrji utti «tiglijsilj. 



'Good Heaven 1 Why even the little children in Franco speak French !" 

Addison. 




" Allons ! Vite I 
" No, Mounseer, 

I. 

Never go to France 

Unless you know the lingo, 

If you do, like me, 

You will repent, by jingo. 

Staring like a fool, 

And silent as a mummy, 

There I stood alone, 

A nation with a dummy : 

n. 
Chaises stand for chairs. 
They christen letters Billies, 
They call their mothers mares, 
And all their daughters Jillies ; 



Vite ! Vite ! Vite !" 
not veat-thems w^hoats !' 



Strange it was to hear, 
I'll tell you what's a good 'un, 
They call their leather queer. 
And half their shoes are wooden. 



Signs I had to make 
For every little notion, 
Limbs all going like 
A telegraph in motion, 
For wine I reel'd about, 
To show my meaning fully, 
And made a pair of horns, 
To ask for " beef and buliv." 



62 



HOOD'S OWN. 



Moo ! I cried for milk ; 

I got my sweet things snugger, 

When I kissed Jeannette, 

'Twas understood for sugar. 

If I wanted bread, 

My jaws I set a-going, 

And asked for new-laid eggs. 

By clapping hands and crowing ! 

V. 

If I wish'd a ride, 

I'll tell you how I got it ; 

On my stick astride, 

I made believe to trot it ; 



Then their cash was strange, 
It bored me every minute, 
Now here's a hog to change. 
How many sows are in it ! 

VI. 

Never go to France, 

Unless you know the lingo ; 

If you do, like me, 

You will repent, by jingo ; 

Staring like a fool. 

And silent as a mummy. 

There I stood alone, 

A nation with a dummy 1 



63 



dDur ©ilUg^ 



" Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain." 

Goldsmith. 



I HAVE a great anxiety to become a topographer, and I do not 
know that I can make an easier commencement of the character, 
than by attempting a description of our village. It will be found, 
as my friend the landlord over the way says, that " things are 
drawn mild.^^ 

I live opposite the Green Man. I know that to be the sign, 
in spite of the picture, because I am told of the fact in large gilt 
letters, in three several places. The whole-length portrait of 
" Vhomme verd^^ is rather imposing. He stands plump before 
you, in a sort of wrestling attitude, the legs standing distinctly 
apart, in a brace of decided boots, with dun tops, joined to a pair 
of Creole-coloured leather breeches. The rest of his dress is pecu- 
har ; the coat, a two-flapper, green and brown, or, as they say at 
the tap, half-and-half; a cocked hat on the half cock ; a short belt 
crossing the breast like a flat gas-pipe. The one hand stuck on the 
greeney-brown hip of my friend, in the other a gun with a barrel 
like an entire butt, and the buti like a brewer's whole stock. On 
one side, looking up at the vanished visage of his master, is all 
that remains of a liver-and-white pointer — seeming now to be 
some old dog from India, for his white complexion is turned yel- 
low, and his Uver is more than half gone ! 



64 



HOOD'S OWN. 



The inn is really a very quiet, cozey, comfortable inn, though 

the landlord announces a fact in larger letters, methinks, than his 

information warrants, viz., that he is " Licensed to deal in Foreign 

Wines and Spirits" All innkeepei*s, I trust, are so licensed ; 

there is no occasion to make so brazen a brag of this sinecure 

permit. 

****** 

I had written thus far, when the tarnished gold letters of the 
Green Man seemed to be suddenly re-gilt ; and on looking up- 
wards, I perceived that a sort of sky-light had been opened in the 




E LADY OF 



OUR VILLAGE. 



clouds, giving entrance to a bright gleam of sunshine, which 
glowed with remarkable effect on a yellow post-chaise in the 
stable-yard, and bi-ought the ducks out beautifully white from the 
black horse-pond. Tempted by the appearance of the weather, I 



OUR VILLAGE. 65 

put down my pen, and strolled out for a quarter of an hour be- 
fore dinner to inhale that air, without which, like the chameleon, 
I cannot feed. On my return, I found, with some surprise, that 
my papers were a good deal discomposed ; but, before I had time 
for much wonder, my landlady entered with one of her most oblig- 
ing curtseys, and observed that she had seen me writing 
in the morning, and it had occurred to her by chance, that I 
might by possibility have been writing a description of the village. 
I told her that 1 had actually been engaged on that very subject. 
" If that is the case, of course. Sir, you will begin, no doubt, about 
the Green Man, being so close by ; and I dare say, you would 
say something about the sign, and the Green Man with his top 
boots, and his gun, and his Indian hver-and-white pointer, though 
his white to be sure is turned yellow, and his hver is more than 
half gone." " You are perfectly right, Mrs. Ledger," I rephed, 
" and in one part of the description, I think I have used almost 
your own very words." " Well, that is curious. Sir," exclaimed 
Mrs. L., and physically, not arithmetically, casting up all her hands 
and eyes. " Moreover, what I mean to say, is this ; and I only 
say that to save trouble. There's a young man lodges at the 
Greengrocer's over the way, who has writ an account of the 
village already to your hand. The people about the place call him 
the Poet, but, anyhow, he studies a good deal, and writes beauti- 
ful ; and, as I said before, has made the whole village out of his 
own head. Now, it might save trouble, Sir, if you was to write 
it out, and I am sure I have a copy, that, as far as the loan goes, 
is at your service, Sir." My curiosity induced me to take the 
offer ; and as the poem really forestalled what I had to say of the 
hamlet, I took my landlady's advice and transcribed it, — and 
here it is. 



66 HOOD'S OWN. 



OUR VILLAGE.— BY A VILLAGER. * 

Our village, that's to say not Miss Mitford's village, but our village 

of Bullock Smithy, 
Is come into by an avenue of trees, three oak pollards, two elders, 

and a withy ; 
And in the middle, there's a green of about not exceeding an acre 

and a half; 
It's common to all, and fed off by nineteen cows, six ponies, three 

horses, five asses, two foals, seven pigs, and a calf ! 
Besides a pond in the middle, as is held by a similar sort of common 

law lease. 
And contains twenty ducks, six drakes, three ganders, two dead dogs, 

four drown'd kittens, and twelve geese. 
Of course the green's cropt very close, and does famous for bowling 

when the little village boys play at cricket ; 
Only some horse, or pig, or cow, or great jackass, is sure to come and 

stand right before the wicket. 
There's fifty-five private houses, let alone barns and workshops, and 

pig-styes, and poultry-huts, and such-like sheds ; 
With plenty of public-houses — two Foxes, one Green Man, three 

Bunch of Grapes, one Crown, and six King's Heads. 
The Green Man is reckon'd the best, as the only one that for love or 

money can raise 
A postilion, a blue jacket, two deplorable lame white horses, and a 

ramshackled " neat post-chaise." 
There's one parish church for all the people, whatsoever may be 

their ranks in life or their degrees. 
Except one very damp, small, dark, freezing-cold, little Methodist 

chapel of Ease ; 
And close by the church-yard, there's a stone-mason's yard, that when 

the time is seasonable 
Will furnish with afflictions sore and marble urns and cherubims very 

low and reasonable. 
There's a cage, comfortable enough ; I've been in it with Old Jack 

Jeff'rey and Tom Pike ; 
For the Green Man next door will send you in ale, gin, or any thing 

else you like. 



OUR VILLAGE. 6T 

I can't speak of the stocks, as nothing remains of them but the 

upright post ; 
But the pound is kept in repairs for the sake of Cob's horse, as is 

always there almost. 
There's a smithy of course, where that queer sort of a chap in his 

• way, Old Joe Bradley, 
Perpetually hammers and stammers, for he stutters and shoes horses 

very badly. 
There's a shop of all sorts, that sells every thing, kept by the widow 

of Mr. Task ; 
But when you go there it's ten to one she's out of every thing you 

ask. 
You'll know her house by the swarm of boys, like flies, about the 

old sugary cask : 
There are six empty houses, and not so well paper'd inside as out. 
For bill-stickers won't beware, but sticks notices of sales and election 

placards all about. 
That's the Doctor's with a green door, where the garden pots in the 

windows are seen ; 
A weakly monthly rose that do'nt blow, and a dead geranium, and a 

tea-plant with five black leaves and one green. 
As for hollyoaks at the cottage doors, and honeysuckles and jasmines, 

you may go and whistle ; 
But the Tailor's front garden grow two cabbages, a dock, a ha'porth 

of pennyroyal, two dandelions, and a thistle. 
There are three small orchards— Mr. Busby's the schoolmaster's is 

the chief — 
With two pear-trees that dont bear ; one plum and an apple, that 

every year is stripped by a thief. 
There's another small day-school too, kept by the respectable Mrs. 

Gaby, 
A select establishment, for six little boys and one big, and four little 

girls and a baby ; 
There's a rectory, with pointed gables and strange odd chimneys that 

never smokes, 
For the rector don't live on his living like other Christian sort of 

folks ; 
There's a barber's, once a-week well filled with rough black-bearded 

shock-headed churls. 



68 HOOD'S OWN. 

And a window with two feminine men's heads, and two masculine 

ladies in false curls ; 
There's a butcher's, and a carpenter's, and a plumber's, and a small 

greengrocer's, and a baker. 
But he won't bake on a Sunday, and there's a sexton that's a coal- 
merchant besides, and an undertaker ; 
And a toy-shop, but not a whole one, for a village can't compare with 

the London shops ; 
One window sells drums, dolls, kites, carts, batts, Clout's balls, and 

the other sells malt and hops. 
And Mrs. Brown, in domestic economy not to be a bit behind her 

betters. 
Lets her house to a milliner, a watchmaker, a rat-catcher, a cobbler, 

lives in it herself, and it's the post-office for letters. 
Now I've gone through all the village — ay, from end to end, save and 

except one more house, 
But I haven't come to that — and I hope I never shall — and that's 

the Village Poor-House ! 



69 



€)}t itrnp-aJniik 



" Luck'8 all. 



Some men seem born to be lucky. Happier than kings, For- 
tune's wheel has for them no revolutions. Whatever they touch 
turns to gold, — their path is paved with the philosopher's stone. 
At games of chance they have no chance ; but what is better, a 
certainty. They hold four suits of trumps. They get windfalls, 
without a breath stirring — as legacies. Prizes turn up for them 
in lotteries. On the turf, their horse — an outsider — always wins. 
They enjoy a whole season of benefits. At the very worst, in 
trying to drown themselves, they dive on some treasure undis- 
covered since the Spanish Armada ; or tie their halter to a hook, 
that unseals a hoard in the ceiling. That's their luck. 

There is another kind of fortune, called ill-luck ; so ill, that you 
hope it will die ; — but it don't. That's my luck. 

Other people keep scrap-books ; but I, a scrape-book. It is 
theirs to insert bon-mots, riddles, anecdotes, caricatures, facetiae of 
all kinds ; mine to record mischances, failures, accidents, disap- 
pointments ; in short, as the betters say, I have always a bad 
book. Witness a few extracts, bitter as extract of bark. 

April 1st. Married on this day : in the first week of the 
honeymoon, stumbled over my father-in-law's beehives ! He has 
252 bees ; thanks to me, he is now able to check them. Some 
of the insects having an account against me, preferred to settle on 



70 iioojrs OWN. 

my calf. Otiiorft nviiirmcA on my \m\nU. My h.-ilfl \\<','.n\ Rcemcd 
rt porf<;ct/ hummirif^-l,o|) ! 'IVo Imriflrcd and fifty-two fttinp^s — it 
Mliould 1)0 "Hinir^.H -;i(i(l arrows of outragoouH fortune !" F>ut 
tliat'n my liic,|<. I{,iih1i((1 hcc hlitid into tlic liorsc. j>oii(i, arirl torn 
out l>y 'I'i/^^T, tlio, li(»iiH(; (log. Htn^/^cffd incontinent into tlio 
pig-Hty, and collared l>y tlio how — huh, per coll. for kicking lior 
HUcklingH ; rccoJnfri<-,nd<',d oil for u\y wounds, ;ind norw, hut lamp 
<litU) in the houHo; relieved of the Htingn at last — what hi'k ! hy 
252 operatJoiiH. 

J)th. (iave my adond IJelinda .'i. hiack eye, in the open Htree,t, 
ftiming at a lad who atl^ irij>ted to Hiiat^Ji her reticulo. Belinda'H 
part taken hy a hig raneal, as d<!af as a post, who wanted to fight 
rne " for Htriking a woman." My hick again. 

r2th. l*nr<JiaH<!d a, mar(^, vvarrant(;d ho gentle th;it a lady 
might rido lier, and, indeed, no animal could he fjuieter, except 
the leather one, forrrnirly in the Show-room, at KxcUsr Change. 
Meant for the first time to ride with Melinda to the Park — put 
triy foot in the ntirrnp, and found iriyself on my own haclc inHtcad 
of the mare'H; Other men an? thrown hy tiwsir horH(!H, hut a Had- 
dle <loeH it for me. W(!ll, — nothing is ho hard as my luck — un- 
IcHH it he the fourth flag or ntone froiri the |)ost at the north cor- 
ner of I rarley-Htre<',t. 

l-lth. llun down in n wherry hy a coal hrig, off Greenwich, 
hut providentially picked up hy a steamer, that burst her ])oiler 
directly afterwards. Haved to ho acaldcfdl — lint misfortunes with 
me never came nitiglo, from my very childhood. T remember when 
my little brothers and sisters tumbled down stairs, tluiy always 
hitchrd halfway at the angle. Mif luck invariahly turned the 
corner. It <^ould not bear to bate mo a single bump. 

I7tb. Had my eyi^ picke<l out by a pavior who wmh nrinf/ his 



THE S(liAVi:-li()()K. Tl 

wfiy, ho didn't oaro whw. Hont hoirio in fi liackncy cliariot tliat 
upHct. ]'aid Jarvi.H a Hovoroi^m for a Hhiilinjr. My luck all ovor! 

Jnt of May. My Ww. on (inr. Not a Hwofp to Ih-. liad for lovo 
or money l^Lucky (;n(;u;^h for mc—iha i>ariHli engine, Koon ar- 
rived, with ail tho cliarity Hchool. Boya arc fond of l»layiri^r — 
and indulged their propennity by playing intx> my h<Ht drawin^'- 
roorn. Kvery frif.nd I had dropped in to dirjri<.r. Nothing but 
L.'K^iidemonian ])\iu-k broth. Others hav(; (>ot-luck, })Ut I. have 
not even j>inf/-luck — at leant of tlxi nr^ht Hort. 

8th. Ff>ijnd, on ^ettin^ n[», that the kitchen gardf-r) had been 
Htrif)pf;d by thievcH, but had the luck at night to caU-Ji norne ono 
in tho garden, by walking into my own trap. Afraid Uj call out, 
for fear of being abot at by tho gardener, who would have, hit 
me to a dead certainty — for Huch is jny luck ! 

10th. Agricultural distress is a treat U> mine My old friend 
IJill — I must lienceforth call him C.'orn-bill — has, this morning, 
laid his unf<',<:Iirig woodou l<-.g on my terid<;r(Ht 1/k-, lik^, a tlir<;Hher. 
fn spiU; of DibdiD, J don't belic,vo that oak lias any hr-art : or it 
would not bo such a walking trea^l-rnill ! ' 

12th. 'iVo piew;» of " my usual." First knocked dr;wn hy a 
mad bulk Hec<'>»ndly, picked up by a pick-pocket. Any body but mo 
would liave found one honest liumafie, man out of a whole CTOwd ; 
but f am born to suffer, whether done by fux;ide,nt or done by de.sign. 
Luckily for me and the. pIck-[K;e,ket, I vva.H ah!'; to identify him, 
bound over Uj prc^secuto, and hml tlie satisfaction of exporting him 
Vj liotany bay. I suppr^o 1 performed well in a wjurt of justir;^;, for 
the next day — " Encore un coup /" — I liad a summons U> servo 
with a Middlesex jury, at the Old iJailey, for a fortnight. 

14th. My ninnber in tho lott^;ry ha.H come up a ca[»ital pri//;. 
Luck at last — if f had not l'»st the ticket. 



72 



a €xut Itnrtj, 



Whoe'er has seen upon the human face 
The yellow jaundice and the jaundice black, 
May form a notion of old Colonel Case 
With nigger Porapey waiting at his back. 

Case, — as the case is, many time with folks 
From hot Bengal, Calcutta, or Bombay, 
Had tint his tint, as Scottish tongues would say, 
And show'd two cheeks as yellow as eggs' yolks. 
Pompey, the chip of some old ebon block, 
In hue was like his master's stiff cravat. 
And might indeed have claimed akin to that, 
Coming, as he did, of an old black stock. 

Case wore the liver's livery that such 
Must wear, their past excesses to denote, 
Like Greenwich pensioners that take too much. 
And then do penance in a yellow coat. 
Pompey's, a deep and permanent jet dye, 
A stain of nature's staining — one of those 
We call fast colours — merely, I suppose. 
Because such colours never go or Jly. 

Pray mark this difference of dark and sallow, 
Pompey's black husk, and the old Colonel's yellow. 

The Colonel, once a pennyless beginner. 
From a long Indian rubber rose a winner. 
With plenty of pagodas in his pocket. 
And homeward turning his Hibernian thought, 
Deem'd Wicklow was the very place that ought 
To harbour one whose rvick was in the socket. 



A TRUE STORY. 



73 



Unhappily for Case's scheme of quiet, 
Wieklow just then was in a pretty riot, 
A fact recorded in each day's diurnals, 
Things, Case was not accustomed to peruse. 

Careless of news ; 
But Porapey always read these bloody journals. 
Full of Killmany and of Killmore work. 
The freaks of some O'Shaunessy's shillaly, 
Of morning frays by some O'Brien Burke, 
Or horrid, nightly outrage by some Daly; 
How scums deserving of the devil's ladle, 
Would fall upon the harmless scull and knock it. 
And if he found an infant in the cradle 
Stern Rock would hardly hesitate to rock it ;— 




CAPTAIN ROCK. 



In fact, he read of burner and of killer. 
And Irish ravages, day after day, 
Till, haunting in his dreams, he used to say, 
That "Pompey could not sleep on Pomfey's Pillar! 
4 



74 HOOD'S OWN. 

Judge then the horror of the nigger's face 

To find with such impressions of that dire land — 

That Case,— his master,— was a packing case 

For Ireland ! 
He saw in fearful reveries arise, 
Phantasmagorias of those dreadful men 
Whose fame associate with Irish plots is, 
Fitzgeralds — Tones — O'Connors — Hares — and then 
" Those Emmets,'' not so " little in his eyes " 

As Doctor Watts's ! 
He felt himself piked, roasted,— carv'd and hack'd, 
His big black burly body seemed in fact 
A pincushion for Terror's pins and needles, — 
Oh, how he wish'd himself beneath the sun 
Of Afric — or in far Barbadoes — one 
Of Bishop Coleridge's new black beadles. 




P O M P E Y ' s p ; 



Full of this fright, 
With broken peace and broken English choking, 
As black as any raven and as croaking, 
Pompey rushed in upon his master's sight, 
Plump'd on his knees, and clasp'd his sable digits, 
Thus stirring Cnr'iosity's sharp fidgets — 



A TRUE STORY. 75 

" O Massa ! — Massa ! — Colonel ! — Massa Case — 
Not go to Ireland ! — Ireland dam bad place; 
Dem take our bloods — dem Irish — every drop — 
Oh why for Massa go so far a distance 

To have him life ? " '■ — Here Pompey made a stop, 

Putting an awful period to existence. 

" Not go to Ireland — not to Ireland, fellow, 

And murder'd — why should I be murder'd, Sirrah ? " 

Cried Case, with anger's tinge upon his yellow, — 

Pompey, for answer, pointing in a mirror 

The Colonel's saffron, and his own japan, — 

" Well, what has that to do — quick — speak outright, boy ? " 

" O Massa " — (so the explanation ran) 

"Massa be killed — 'cause Massa Orange Man, 

And Pompey killed — 'cause Pompey not a White Boy!^* 



76 




ACCUSTOMED TO THE CARE OF CHILDREN. 

I SAWE a Mayd sitte on a Bank, 

Beguiled by Wooer fayne and fond ; 

And whiles His flatterynge Vowes She drank, 

Her Nurselynge slipt within a Pond ! 

All Even Tide they Talkde and Kist, 
For She was tayre and He was Kinde ; 
The Sunne went down before She wist 
Another Sonne had sett behinde ! 

With angrie Hands and frownynge Browe, 
That deemd Her owne the Urchine's Sinne, 
She pluekt Him out, but he was nowe 
Past being Whipt for fallynge in. 

She then beginnes to wayle the Ladde 
With Shrikes that Echo answerede round — 
O ! foolishe Mayd to be soe sadde 
The Momente that lier Care was drownd ! 



77 




€■0. /EHtllJ 



" Gay being, born to flutter ! " 

Sale's Glee. 



Is this your faith, then, Fanny ! 

What, to chat with every Dun ! 
I'm the one, then, but of many, 

Not of many, but the One! 

Last night you smil'd on all, Ma'am, 
That appear'd in scarlet dress; 

And your Regimental Ball, Ma'am, 
Look'd a little like a Mess. 



78 HOOD'S OWN. 

I thought that of the Sogers 

(As the Scotch say) one might do, 

And that I, slight Ensign Rogers, 
Was the chosen man and true. 

But, 'sblood ! your eye was busy 
With that ragamuffin mob ; — 

Colonel Buddell — Colonel Dizzy — 
And Lieutenant-Colonel Cobb. 

General Joblin, General Jodkin, 
Colonels — Kelly, Felly, with 

Majors — Sturgeon, Truffle, Bodkin, 
And the Quarter-master Smith. 

Major Powderum — Major Dowdrum— 
Major Chowdrum — Major Bye — 

Captain Tawney — Captain Fawney, 
Captain Any-one — but I ! 

Deuce take it ! when the regiment 
You so praised, I only thought 

That you lov'd it in abridgement, 
But I now" am better taught ! 

I went, as loving man goes. 
To admire thee in quadrilles ; 

But Fan, you dance fandangoes 
With just any fop that wills ! 

I went with notes before us. 
On the lay of Love to touch ; 

But with all the Corps in chorus, 
Oh ! it is indeed too much ! 

You once — ere you contracted 
For the Army — seemed my own ; 

But now you laugh with all the Staff, 
And I may sigh alone ! — 



TO FANNY. 79 



I know not how it chances, 
When my passion ever dares, 

But the warmer my advances, 
Then the cooler are your airs. 

I am, I don't conceal it, 

But I am a little hurt ; 
You're a Fan, and I must feel it. 

Fit for nothing but a Flirt ? 

I dreamt thy smiles of beauty 

On myself alone did fall ; 
But alas ! " Cosi Fan Tutti ! " 

It is thus, Fan, thus will all ! 

You have taken quite a mob in 

Of new military flames ; — 
They would make a fine Round Robin 

If I gave you all their names ! 




A ROUND ROBIN. 



80 



:^nBmS; hii % '|3nnr #nitUnnin 



There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 

The Muse found Scroggins stretched beneath a rug. 

Goldsmith. 



Poetry and poverty begin with the same letter, and, in more 
respects than one, are " as Hke each other as two P's. " — Nine 
tailors are the making of a man, but not so the nine Muses. 
Their votaries are notoriously only water-drinkers, eating mutton 
cold, and dwelling in attics. Look at the miserable lives and 
deaths recorded of the poets. " Butler," says Mr. D'Israeli, 
" Hved in a cellar, and Goldsmith in a Deserted Village. Savage 
ran wild, — Chatterton was carried on St. Augustine's Back like 
a young gipsy ; and his half-starved Rowley always said heigho, 
when he heard of gammon and spinach. Gray's days were ode- 
ious, and Gay's gaiety was fabulous. Falconer was shipwrecked. 
Homer was a bUnd beggar, and Pope raised a subscription for 
him, and went snacks. Crabbe found himself in the poorhouse. 
Spencer could'nt afford a great-coat, and Milton was led up and 
down by his daughters, to save the expense of a dog." 

It seems all but impossible to be a poet in easy circumstances. 
Pope has shown how verses are written by Ladies of Quality — 
and what execrable rhymes Sir Richard Blackmore composed in 
his chariot. In a hay-cart he might have sung like a Burns. 

As the editors of magazines and annuals (save one) well know, 
the truly poetical contributions which can be inserted, are not 
those which come post free, in rose-coloured tinted paper, scent- 



POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN. 



81 



ed with musk, and sealed with fancy wax. The real article ar- 
rives by post, unpaid, sealed with rosin, or possibly with a dab 
of pitch or cobbler's wax, bearing the impression of a halfpenny, 
or more frequently of a button, — the paper is dingy, and scant — 
the hand-writing has evidently come to the author by nature — 
there are trips in the speUing, and Priscian is a little scratch'd or 
so — but a rill of the true Castahan runs through the whole com- 
position, though its fountain-head was a broken tea-cup, instead 
of a silver standish. A few years ago I used to be favoured with 
numerous poems for insertion, which bore the signature of Fitz- 
Norman ; the crest on the seal had probably descended from the 




YOUR VERY HUMBLE SERVANT. 



Conquest, and the packets were invariably delivered by a Patago- 
nian footman in green and gold. The author was evidently rich, 
and the verses were as palpably poor ; they were dechned with 



gf2 HOOD'S OWN. 

the usual answer to correspondents who do not answer, and the 
communications ceased — as I thought for ever, but I was deceiv- 
ed : a few days back one of the dii-tiest and raggedest of street 
urchins dehvered a soiled whity brown packet, closed with a 
wafer, which bore the impress of a thimble. The paper had 
more the odour of tobacco than of rose leaves, and the writing 
appeared to have been perpetrated with a skewer dipped in 
coffee-grounds; but the old signature of Fitz-Norman had the 
honour to be my " very humble servant" at the foot of the letter. 
It was too certain that he had fallen from affluence to indigence, 
but the adversity which had wrought such a change upon the 
writing implements, had, as usual, improved his poetry. The neat 
crowquill never traced on the superfine Bath paper any thing so 
unaffected as the following : — 

STANZAS. 

WRITTEN UNDER THE FEAK OF BAILIFFS. 

Alas ! of all the noxious things 

That wait upon the poor, 
Most cruel is that Felon-Fear 

That haunts the " Debtor's Door I" 

Saint Sepulchre's bej^ius to toll, 

The Sheriffs seek the cell : — 
So I expect their officers, 

And tremble at the bell ! 

I look for beer, and yet I quake 

With fright at every tap ; 
And dread a double-knock, for oh ! 

I've not a single rap ! 



POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN. 83 

SONNET. 

WRITTEN IN A WORKHOUSE. 

Oh, blessed ease ! no more of heaven I ask : 

The overseer is gone — that vandal elf — 

And hemp, unpick'd, may go and hang itself, 
While I, untask'd, except with Cowper's Task, 
In blessed literary leisure bask, 

And lose the workhouse, saving in the works 

Of Goldsmiths, Johnsons, Sheridans, and Burkes ; 
Eat prose and drink of the Castalian flask ; 
The themes of Locke, the anecdotes of Spence, 

The humorous of Gay, the Grave of Blair — 
Unlearned toil, unletter'd labours, hence ! 

But, hark ! I hear the master on the stair 
And Thomson's Castle, that of Indolence, 

Must be to me a castle in the air. 



SONNET. — A SOMNAMBULIST. 



" A change came o'er the spirit of my dream." 

Bybon. 



Me THOUGHT — for Fancy is the strangest gadder 

When sleep all homely mundane ties hath riven — 
Methought that I ascended Jacob's ladder. 

With heartfelt hope of getting up to Heaven : 

Some bell, I knew not whence, was sounding seven 
When I set foot upon that long one-pair ; 

And still I climbed when it had chimed eleven, 
Nor yet of landing-place became aware ; 
Step after step in endless flight seem'd there ; 

But on, with steadfast hope, I struggled still. 
To gain that blessed haven from all care, 

Where tears are wiped, and hearts forget their ill, 
When, lo ! I wakened on a sadder stair — 

Tramp — tramp — tramp — tramp — upon the Brixton Mill ! 



84 HOOD'S OWN. 

FUGITIVE LINES ON PAWNING MY WATCH 



• Aurum pot-a-bile : "—Gold biles the pot. 

Free Tkanslation. 



Farewell then, my golden repeater, 
We're come to my Uncle's old shop ; 

And hunger won't be a dumb-waiter, 
The Cerberus growls for a sop ! 

To quit thee, my comrade diurnal, 
My feelings will certainly scotch ; 

But oh ! there's a riot internal. 

And Famine calls out for the Watch ! 

Oh ! hunger's a terrible trial, 

I really must have a relief, — 
So here goes the plate of your dial 

To fetch me some Williams's beef! 

As famish'd as any lost seaman, 

I've fasted for many a dawn, 
And now must play chess with the Demon, 

And give it a check with a pawn. 

I've fasted, since dining at Buncle's, 
Two days with true Percival zeal — 

And now must make up at my Uncle's, 
By getting a duplicate meal. 

No Peachum it is, or young Lockit, 
That rifles my fob with a snatch ; 

Alas ! I must pick my own pocket. 
And make gravy-soup of my watch ! 

So long I have wander'd a starver, 
I'm getting as keen as a hawk ; 

Time's long hand must take up a carver. 
His short hand lay hold of a fork. 



POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN 



85 



Right heavy and sad the event is, 
But oh ! it is Poverty's crime ; 

I've been such a Brownrigg's Apprentice, 
I thus must be " out of my Time." 




*'0H MY PROPHETIC SOUL — MY UNCLK! 

Alas ! when in Brook Street the upper, 
In comfort I lived betv^^een walls, 

I've gone to a dance for my supper ; — 
But now I must go to Three Balls ! 



Folks talk about dressing for dinner, 
But I have for dinner undrest ; 

Since Christmas, as I am a sinner, 
I've eaten a suit of my best. 



66 HOOD'S OWN. 

I haven't a rag or a mummock 
To fetch me a chop or a steak ; 

I wish that the coats of my stomach 
Were such as my Uncle would take ! 

When dishes were ready with garnish 
My watch used to warn with a chime — 

But now my repeater must furnish 
The dinner in lieu of the time ! 

My craving will have no denials, 
I can't fob it off, if you stay, 

So go, — and the old Seven Dials 
Must tell me the time of the day. 

Your chimes I shall never more heai- 'em, 
To part is a Tic Douloureux ! 

But Tempus has his edax rerum, 
And I have my Feeding-Tinie too ! 

Farewell then, my golden repeater, 
We're come to my Uncle's old shop— 

And Hunger woct be a dumb-waiter, 
The Cerberus growls for a sop ! 



87 



^t tih nf ^immnmautt 

(by himself). 



" This, this, is solitude. " 

LoED Bybon. 



I WAS born, I may almost say, an orphan : my Father died 
three months before I saw the light, and my Mother three hours 
after — thus I was left in the whole world alone, and an only 
child, for I had neither Brothers nor Sisters ; much of my after- 
passion for sohtude might be ascribed to this cause, for I believe 
our tendencies date themselves from a much earlier age, or> 
rather, youth, than is generally imagined. It was remarked that 
I could go alone at nine months, and I have had an aptitude to 
going alone all the rest of my life. The first words I learned to 
say, were " I by myself, I " — or thou — or he — or she — or it — 
but I was a long time before I could pronounce any personals in 
the plural ; my little games and habits were equally singular. I 
was fond of playing at Sohtary or at Patience, or another game 
of cards of my own invention, namely, whist, with three dummies. 
Of books, my favourite was Robinson Crusoe, especially the first 
part, for I was not fond of the intrusion of Friday, and thought 
the natives really were Savages to spoil such a sohtude. At ten 
years of age I was happily placed with the Rev. Mr. Steinkopff, 
a widower, who took in only the limited number of six pupils, 
and had only me to begin with : here I enjoyed myself veiy 
much, learning in a first and last class in school hours, and play- 



88 HOOD'S OWN. 

ing in play time at hoop, and other pretty games not requiring 
partners. My playground was, in short, a garden of Eden, and I 
did not even sigh for an Eve, but, like Paradise, it was too hap- 
py to last. I was removed from Mr. Steinkopif 's to the Univer- 
sity of Gottingen, and at once the eyes of six hundred pupils, 
and the pupils of twelve hundred eyes, seemed fastened upon 
me ; I felt like an owl forced into day-light ; often and often I 
shamm'd ill, as an excuse for confining myself to my chamber, 
but some officious would-be friends, insisting on coming to sit 
with me, as they said, to enliven my solitude, I was forced as a 
last resource to do that which subjected me, on the principle of 
Howard's Prison Discipline, to soUtary confinement. But even 
this pleasure did not last ; the heads of the College found out 
that solitary confinement was no punishment, and put another 
student in the same cell ; in this extremity I had no alternative 
but to endeavour to make him a convert to my principles, and in 
some days I succeeded in convincing him of the individual inde- 
pendence of man, the solid pleasure of solitude, and the hollow 
one of society, — in short, he so warmly adopted my views, that 
in a transport of sympathy we swore an eternal friendship, and 
agreed to separate for ever, and keep ourselves to ourselves as 
much as possible. To this end we formed with our blanket a 
screen across our cell, and that we might not even in thought 
associate with each other, he soliloquised only in French, of which 
I was ignorant, and I in English, to which he was equally a 
stranger. Under this system my wishes were gratified, for I 
think I felt more intensely lonely than I ever remember when 
more strictly alone. Of course this condition had a conclusion ; 
we were brought out again unwillingly into the common world, 
and the firm of Zimmermann, Nobody, and Co., was compelled to 



THE LIFE OF ZIMMERMANN. 89 

admit — six hundred partners. — In this extremity, my fellow 
prisoner Zingleman and myself had recourse to the persuasions 
of oratory. We preached solitude, and got quite a congregation, 
and of the six hundred hearers, four hundred at least became 
converts to our Unitarian doctrine ; every one of these disciples 
strove to fly to the most obscure recesses, and the little cemetery 
of the College had always a plenty of those who were trying to 
make themselves scarce. This of course was afflicting ; as in the 
game of puss in a corner, it was difficult to get a corner unoccu- 
pied to be aloiie in ; the defections and desertions from the Col- 
lege were consequently numerous, and for a long time the State 
Gazette contained daily advertisements for missing gentlemen, 
with a description of their persons and habits, and invariably con- 
cluding with this sentence : " of a melancholy turn, — calls himself 
a Zimmermanian, and affects solitude." In fact, as Schiller's 
Robbers begot Robbers, so did my solitude beget solitudinarians, 
but with this difference, that the dramatist's disciples fi-equented 
the Highways, and mine the Byeways ! 

The consequence was what might have been expected, which I 
had foreseen, and ardently desired. I was expelled from the Uni- 
versity of Gottingen. This was perhaps the triumph of my hfe. 
A grand dinner was got up by Zingleman in my honour, at 
which more than three hundred were present, but in tacit hom- 
age to my principles, they never spoke nor held any communica- 
tion with each other, and at a concerted signal the toast of " Zim- 
mermann and Solitude" was drunk, by dumb show, in appropri- 
ate solemn silence. I was much affected by this tribute, and left 
with tears in my eyes, to think, with such sentiments, how many 
of us might be thrown together again. Being thus left to ray- 
self, like a vessel with only one hand on board, I was at liberty 



90 HOOD'S OWN. 

to steer my own course, and accordingly took a lodging at Num- 
ber One, in Wilderness Street, that held out the inviting prospect 
of a single room to let for a single man. In this congenial situa- 
tion I composed that, my great work on Solitude, and here I 
think it necessary to w^arn the reader against many spurious 
books, calling themselves "Companions to Zimmermann's Soli- 
tude," as if solitude could have society. Alas, from this work I 
may date the decline which my presentiment tells me will termi- 
nate in my death. My book, though written against populous- 
ness, became so popular, that its author, though in love with 
loneKness, could never be alone. Striving to fly from the face of 
man, I could never escape it, nor that of woman and child into 
the bargain. When I stirred abroad mobs surrounded me, and 
cried, " Here is the Solitary !" — when I staid at home I was 
equally crowded ; all the public societies of Gottingen thought 
proper to come up to me with addresses, and not even by deputa- 
tion. Flight was my only resource, but it did not avail, for I 
could not fly from myself. Wherever I went Zimmermann and 
SoKtude had got before me, and their votaries assembled to meet 
me. In vain I travelled throughout the European and Asiatic 
continent : with an enthusiasm and perseverance of which only 
Germans are capable, some of my countrymen were sure to 
haunt me, and really showed by the distance they journeyed, 
that they were ready to go all lengths with me and my doctrine. 
Some of these Pilgrims even brought their wives and children 
along with them, in search of my solitude ; and were so unreason- 
able even as to murmur at my taking the inside of a coach, or 
the cabin of a packet-boat to myself. 

From these persecutions I was released by what some persons 
would call an unfortunate accident, a vessel in which I sailed 



THE LIFE OF ZIMMERMANN. 91 

from Leghorn, going down at sea with all hands excepting my 
own pair, which happened to have grappled a hen-coop. There 
was no sail in sight, nor any land to be seen — nothing but sea 
and sky ; and from the midst of the watery expanse it was per- 
haps the first and only glimpse I ever had of real and perfect soli- 
tude, yet so inconsistent is human nature, I could not really and 
perfectly enter into its enjoyment. I was picked up at length by 
a British brig of war ; and, schooled by the past, had the presence 
of mind to conceal my name, and to adopt the English one of 
Grundy. Under this nom de guerre^ but really a name of peace, 
I enjoyed comparative quiet, interrupted only by the pertinacious 
attendance of an unconscious countryman, who, noticing my very 
retired habits, endeavoured by daily lectures from my own work, to 
make me a convert to my own principles. In short, he so wore 
me out, that at last, to get rid of his importunities, I told him 
in confidence that I was the author himself. But the result was 
anything but what I expected ; and here I must blush again for 
the inconsistency of human nature. While Winkells knew me 
only as Grundy, he painted nothing but the charms of Solitude, 
and exhorted me to detach myself from society ; but no sooner 
did he learn that I was Zimmermann, than he insisted on mv 

going to Lady C 's rout and his own converzatione. In 

fact, he wanted to make me, instead of a Lion of the Desert, a 
Lion of the Menagerie. How I resented such a proposition may 
be supposed, as well as his offer to procure for me the first va- 
cancy that happened in the situation of Hermit at Lord P 's 

Hermitage ; being, as he was pleased to say, not only able to 
bear soUtude, but well-bred and well-informed, and fit to receive 
company. The effect of this unfortunate disclosure was to make 
me leave England, for fear of meeting with the llite of a man or 



92 



HOOD'S OWN. 



an ox that ventures to quit the common herd. I should imme- 
diately have been declared mad, and mobbed into lunacy, and 
then put into solitary confinement, with a keeper always with 
me, as a person beside himself, and not fit to be left alone for a 
moment. As such a fate would have been worse to me than 
death, I immediately left London, and am now living anonymous- 
ly in an uninhabited house, — prudence forbids me to say where^. 




93 



€^t (CnmimsH, initlj UiiriEtiniis. 



' The Needles have sometimes been fatal to Mariners." 

PicTUKE OF Isle of Wight. 



One close of day — 'twas in the 

bay 
Of Naples, bay of glory ! 
While light was hanging crowns 

of gold 
On mountains high and hoary, 
A gallant bark got under weigh, 
And with her sails my story. 

For Leghorn she was bound di- 
rect. 
With wine and oil for cargo. 
Her crew of men some nine or ten. 
The captain's name was lago ; 
A good and gallant bark she was. 
La Donna (call'd) del Lago. 

Bronzed mariners were her's to 

view, 
With brown cheeks, clear or 

muddy, 
Dark, shining eyes, and coal-black 

hair, 
Meet heads for painter's study ; 
But 'midst their tan there stood 

one man, 
Whose cheek was fair and ruddy ; 



His brow was high, a loftier brow 
Ne'er shone in song or sonnet, 
His hair a little scant, and when 
He doff 'd his cap or bonnet, 
One saw that Grey had gone be- 
yond 
A premiership upon it ! 

His eye — a passenger was he, 
The cabin he had hired it, — 
His eye was grey, and when he 

look'd 
Around, the prospect fired it — 
A fine poetic light, as if 
The Appe-Nine inspired it. 

His frame was stout, in height 

about 
Six feet — well made and portly ; 
Of dress and manner just to give 
A sketch, but very shortly. 
His order seem'd a composite 
Of rustic with the courtly. 

He ate and quaff*'d, and joked and 

laugh'd, 
And chatted with the seamen. 



94 



HOOD'S OWN. 



And often task'd their skill and 

ask'd 
" What weather is't to be, man ? " 
No demonstration there appear'd 
That he was any demon. 

No sort of sign there was that he 
Could raise a stormy rumpas, 
Like Prospero make breezes blow, 
And rocks and billows thump 

us, — 
But little we supposed what he 
Could M'ith the needle compass! 

Soon came a storm — the sea at 

first 
Seem'd lying almost fallow — 



When lo ! full crash, with billowy 
dash, 

From clouds of black and yel- 
low. 

Came such a gale, as blows but 
once 

A cent'ry, like the aloe ! 

Our stomachs we had just pre- 
pared 
To vest a small amount in ; 
When, gush! a flood of brine 

came down 
The skylight — quite a fountain, 
And right on end the table rear'd, 
Just like the Table Mountain. 




A S- T () 11 M IN T V B I, K HAY. 



THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 95 

Down rush'd the soup, down As save-alls 'gainst his ending. 

gush'd the wine, Down fell the mate, he thought 

Each roll its role repeating, his fate, 

RoU'd down — the round of beef Cheek-mate, was close impending ! 

declar'd 

For parting — not for meating \ Down fell the cook — the cabin 

Off flew the fowls, and all the toy, 

game Their beads with fervour telling, 

Was « too far gone for eating ! " While alps of serge, with snowy- 
verge, 

Down knife and fork — down went Above the yards came yelling. 

the pork, Down fell the crew, and on their 

The lamb too broke its tether; knees 

Down mustard went — each condi- Shudder'd at each white swelling! 

ment — 

Salt — pepper — all together ! Down sunk the sun of bloody 

Down every thing, like craft that hue, 

seek His crimson light a cleaver 

The Downs in stormy weather. To each red rover of a wave : 

To eye of fancy-weaver, 

Down plunged the Lady of the Neptune, the God, seem'd tossing 

Lake, in 

Her timbers seem'd to sever ; A raging scarlet fever ! 
Down, down, a dreary derry down, 

Such lurch she had gone never ; Sore, sore afraid, each papist 

She almost seem'd about to take pray'd 

A bed of down for ever ! To Saint and Virgin Mary ; 

But one there w^as that stood 

Down dropt the captain's nether composed 

jaw, Amid the weaves' vagary ; 

Thus robb'd of all its uses, As staunch as rock, a true game 

He thought he saw the Evil One cock 

Beside Vesuvian sluices, 'Mid chicks of Mother Gary ! 
Playing at dice for soul and ship. 

And throwing Sink and Deuces. His ruddy cheek retain'd its 

streak, 

Down fell the steward on his ftice. No danger seem'd to shrink him : 

To all the Saints commending ; His step still bold, — of mortal 

And candles to the. Virgin vowVl, mould 



96 



HOOD'S OWN. 



The crew could hardly think him : 
The Lady of the Lake, he seem'd 
To know, could never sink him. 

Relax'd at last the furious gale 
Quite out of breath with racing ; 
The boiling flood in milder mood. 
With gentler billows chasing ; 
From stem to stern, with fre- 
quent turn, 
The Stranger took to pacing. 

And as he walk'd to self he talked. 
Some ancient ditty thrumming, 
In under tone, as not alone — 



Now whistling, and now hum- 
ming — 

" You're welcome, Charlie," 
" Cowdenknowes," 

" Kenmure," or " Cambell's Com- 
ing." 

Down went the wind, down went 
the wave, 

Fear quitted the most finical ; 

The Saints, I wot, were soon for- 
got. 

And Hope was at the pinnacle : 

When rose on high a frightful 
cry — 

" The Devil's in the binnacle ! " 




A RUFF SEA. 



" The Saints be near," the helms- The needle seems to alter; 

man cried, God only knows where China 

His voice with quite a falter — lies, 

" Steady's my helm, but every look Jamaica, or Gibraltar ! " 



THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 



97 



The captain stared aghast at mate, 
The pilot at th' apprentice ; 
No fancy of the German Sea 
Of Fiction the event is : 
But when they at the compass 

look'd, 
It seem'd non compass mentis. 

Now north, now south, now east, 

now west. 
The wavering point was shaken, 
'Twas past the whole philosophy 
Of Newton, or of Bacon ; 
Never by compass, till that hour, 
Such latitudes were taken ! 

With fearful speech, each after 

each 
Took turns in the inspection ; 
They found no gun — no iron — 

none 
To vary its direction ; 
It seem'd a new magnetic case 
Of Poles in Insurrection ! 

Farewell to wives, farewell their 

lives, 
And all their household riches ; 
Oh ! while they thought of girl or 

boy. 
And dear domestic niches. 
All down the side which holds the 

heart, 
That needle gave them stitches. 

With deep amaze, the Stranger 

gaz'd 
To see them so white-liver'd : 
And walk'd abaft the binnacle. 



To know at what they shiver'd; 
But when he stood beside the 

card, 
St. Josef ! how it quiver'd ! 

No fancy-motion, brain-begot. 
In eye of timid dreamer — 
The nervous finger of a sot 
Ne'er show'd a plainer tremor; 
To every brain it seem'd too plain, 
.There stood th' Infernal schemer ! 

Mix'd brown and blue each visage 
grew. 

Just like a pullet's gizzard ; 

Meanwhile the captain's wander- 
ing wit, 

From tacking like an izzard, 

Bore down in this plain course at 
last, 

« It's Michael Scott— theWizard !" 

A smile past o'er the ruddy face, 

" To see the poles so falter 

I'm puzzled, friends, as much as 

you. 
For with no fiends I palter; 
Michael I'm not — although a 

Scott— 
My christian name is Walter." 

Like oil it fell, that name, a spell 

On all the fearful faction ; 

The Captain's head (for he had 

read) 
Confess'd the Needle's action, 
And bow'd to Him in whom the 

North 
Has lodged its main attraction! 



98 



^Bir'ii ot SKotrli'L 



Of wedded bliss 
Bards sing amiss, 
I cannot make a song of it ; 
For I am small, 
My wife is tall. 



When we debate 
It is my fate 
To always have the wrong of it ; 
For I am small, 
And she is tall. 



And that's the short and long of it ; And that's the short and long of it! 




LONG COMMONS AND SHORT COMMONS. 

And when I speak. For I am small, 

My voice is weak, And she is tall, 

But hers — she makes a gong of it ; And that's the short and long of it ; 



THE PARISH REVOLUTION. 



99 



She has, in brief, Against my life 

Command in Chief, She'll take a knife, 

And I'm but Aide-de-camp of it ; Or fork, and dart the prong of it ; 
For I am small. For I am small. 

And she is tall. And she is tall, 

And that's the short and long of it ! And that's the short and long of it ! 

She gives to me I sometimes think 

The weakest tea, I'll take to drink, 

And takes the whole Souchong And hector when I'm strong of 
of it ; it ; 

For I am small, For I am small, 

And she is tall. And she is tall, 

And that's the short and long of it ! And that's the short and long of it ! 



She '11 sometimes grip 
My buggy whip. 
And make me feel the thong of it : 
For I am small, 
And she is tall. 



O, if the bell 
Would ring her knell, 
I'd make a gay ding dong of it ; 
For I am small. 
And she is tall, 



And that's the short and long of it ! And that's the short and long of it ! 




' Man wanta but little here below, 
Nor wants that little long." 



100 




PROTECTING THE FARE. 



€\)t iiid. 



A SERIOUS BALLAD. 



Like the two Kings of Brentford smelling at one nosegay. 



In Brentford town, of old renown, 
There lived a Mister Bray, 

Who fell in love with Lucy Bell, 
And so did Mr. Clay. 

To see her ride from Hammer- 
smith, ^ 
By all it was allow'd, 
Such fair outsides are seldom 
seen, 
Such Angels on a Cloud. 



Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay, 
You choose to rival me, 

And court Miss Bell, but there 
your court 
No thoroughfiire shall be. 

Unless you now give up your 

suit. 

You may repent your love; 
I who have shot a pigeon match, 

Can shoot a turtle dove. 



THE DUEL. 



101 



So pray before you woo her more, 
Consider what you do ; 

If you pop aught to Lucy Bell, — 
I'll pop it into you. 

Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray, 
Your threats I quite explode ; 
One who has been a volunteer, 
Knows how to prime and load. 

And so I say to you unless 
Your passion quiet keeps, 

I who have shot and hit bulls' 
eyes. 
May chance to hit a sheep's. 

Now gold is oft for silver changed. 
And that for copper red ; 

But these two went away to give 
Each other change for lead. 

But first they sought a friend 
a-piece, 
This pleasant thought to give — 
When they were dead, they thus 
should have 
Two seconds still to live. 

To measure out the ground not 
long 

The seconds then forebore. 
And having taken one rash step 

They took a dozen more. 

They next prepared each pistol- 
pan 
Against the deadly strife, 



By putting in the prime of death 
Against the prime of life. 

Now all was ready for the foes. 
But when they took their 
stands, 
Fear made them tremble so they 
found 
They both were shaking hands. 

Said Mr. C. to Mr. B., 
Here one of us may fall, 

And like St. Paul's Cathedral 
now. 
Be doom'd to have a ball. 

I do confess I did attach 
Misconduct to your name ; 

If I withdraw the charge, will then 
Your ramrod do the same ? 

Said Mr. B., I do agree — 

But think of Honour's Courts ! 

If we go off without a shot. 
There will be strange reports. 

But look, the morning now is 
bright. 

Though cloudy it begun ; 
Why can't we aim above, as if 

We had call'd out the sun ? 

So up into the harmless air. 
Their bullets they did send ; 

And may all other duels have 
That upsliot in the end ! 



102 



€^txf^ nn EnmnttrB in tjmtl 



" So while I fondly imagined we were deceiving my relations, and flattered my- 
self that I should outwit and incense them all ; behold, my hopes are to be crushed 
at once, by my aunt's consent and approbation, and I am myself the only dupe. But 
here, Sir, — here is the picture 1 " — Lydia Languish. 



DATS of old, O days of Knights, 
Of tourneys and of tilts, 

When love was balk'd and valour 
stalk'd 

On high heroic stilts — 

Where are ye gone 1 — adventures 
cease, 

The world gets tame and flat, — 

We've nothing now but New Po- 
lice — 

There's no Romance in that ! 

1 wish I ne'er had learn'd to read. 
Or Radcliffe how to write ; 

That Scott had been a boor on 

Tweed, 
And Lewis cloister'd quite! 
Would I had never drunk so deep 
Of dear Miss Porter's vat ; 
I only turn to life, and weep — 
There's no Romance in that ! 

No Bandits lurk — no turban'd 

Turk 
To Tunis bears me off — 
I hear no noises in the night 
Except my mother's cough, — 



No Bleeding Spectre haunts the 

house, 
No shape, — ^but owl or bat. 
Come flitting after moth or 

mouse, — 
There's no Romance in that ! 

I have not any grief profound, 

Or secrets to confess, 

My story would not fetch a 

pound 
For A. K. Newman's press ; 
Instead of looking thin and pale, 
I'm growing red and fat. 
As if I lived on beef and ale — 
There's no Romance in that ! 

It's very hard, by land or sea 
Some strange event I court, 
But nothing ever comes to me 
That's worth a pen's report : 
It really made my temper chafe, 
Each coast that I was at, 
I vow'd, and rail'd, and came 

home safe, — 
There's no Romance in that ! 



THERE S NO ROMANCE IN THAT. 



103 



The only time I had a chance 

At Brighton one fine day, 

My chestnut mare began to 

prance, 
Took fright, and ran away ; 
Alas ! no Captain of the Tenth 
To stop my steed came pat; 
A Butcher caught the rein at 

length, — 
There's no Romance in that ! 



Love — even love — goes smoothly 

on 
A railway sort of track — 
No flinty sire, no jealous Don ! 
No hearts upon the rack ; 
No Polydore, no Theodore — 
His ugly name is Mat, 
Plain Matthew Pratt and nothing 

more — 
There's no Romance in that ! 




OM BOW LINO. 



He is not dark, he is not tall, — 
His forehead's rather low. 
He is not pensive — not at all, 



But smiles his teeth to show ; 
He comes from Wales and yet in 



104 



HOOD'S OWN. 



Is really but a sprat; 

With sandy hair and greyish 

eyes — 
There's no Romance in that ! 

He wears no plumes or Spanish 

cloaks, 
Or long sword hanging down ; 
He dresses much like other folks, 
And commonly in brown ; 
His collar he will not discard, 
Or give up his cravat. 
Lord Byron-like — he's not a 

Bard— 
There's no Romance in that ! 

He's rather bald, his sight is weak. 
He's deaf in either drum •, 
Without a lisp he cannot speak, 
But then — he's worth a plum. 
He talks of stocks and three pea- 
cents. 
By way of private chat, 
Of Spanish Bonds, and shares, and 

rents, — 
There's no Romance in that ! 

I sing — ^no matter what I sing, 

Di Tanti — or Crudel, 

Tom Bowling, or God save the 

King, 
Di piacer — All's well ; 
He knows no more about a voice 
For singing than a gnat — 
And as to Music "has no choice," — 
There's no Romance in that ! 



Of light guitar I cannot boast. 

He never serenades ; 

He writes, and sends it by the 

post. 
He doesn't bribe the maids : 
No stealth, no hempen ladder — 

no! • 

He comes with loud rat-tat. 
That startles half of Bedford 

Row — 
There's no Romance in that ! 

He comes at nine, in time to 

choose 
His coffee — just two cups. 
And talks with Pa about the 

news. 
Repeats debates, and sups ; 
John helps him with his coat 

aright, 
And Jenkins hands his hat ; 
My lover bows, and says good 

night — 
There's no Romance in that ! 

I've long had Pa's and Ma's con- 
sent. 
My aunt she quite approves. 
My Brother wishes joy from Kent, 
None try to thwart our loves ; 
On Tuesday Reverend Mr. Mace 
Will make me Mrs. Pratt, 
Of Number Twenty, Sussex 

Place— 
There's no Romance in that ! 



105 



a IBntnlnB 35nHnii 



To Waterloo, with sad ado, 
And many a sigh and groan. 

Amongst the dead, came Patty 
Head, 
To look for Peter Stone. 

" O prithee tell, good sentinel. 
If I shall find him here ? 

I'm come to weep upon his 
corse, 
My Ninety-Second dear ! 



" Into our town a serjeant came 
With ribands all so fine, 

A-flaunting in his cap — alas ! 
His bow enlisted mine ! 

'They taught him how to turn 

his toes. 

And stand as stiflf as starch ; 

I thought that it was love and 

May, 

But it was love and March ! 




THEIDKS or MARCH ARE COMEI 

5* 



106 



HOOD'S OWN. 



" A sorry March indeed to leave 
The friends he might have 
kep',— 

No March of Intellect it was, 
But quite a foolish step. 

" O prithee tell, good sentinel. 

If hereabout he lies ? 
I want a corpse with reddish 

hair, 

And very sweet blue eyes." 

Her sorrow on the sentinel 
Appear'd to deeply strike : — 

" Walk in," he said, " among the 
dead, 
And pick out which you like." 



And soon she picked out Peter 
Stone, 

Half turned into a corse ; 
A cannon was his bolster, and 

His mattrass was a horse. 

" O Peter Stone, O Peter Stone, 
Lord here has been a skrim- 
mage ! 
What have they done to your poor 
breast 
That used to hold my image ?" 

« O Patty Head, O Patty Head, 
You're come to my last kissing ; 

Before I'm set in the Gazette 
As wounded, dead, and missing! 




WAR DANCE.— THE OPENING 07 THE BALL. 



A WATERLOO BALLAD. 



107 



« Alas ! a splinter of a shell 
Right in my stomach sticks ; 

French mortars don't agree so 
well 
With stomachs as French bricks. 

" This very night a merry dance 
At Brussels was to be ; — 

Instead of opening a ball, 
A ball has open'd me. 

" Its billet every bullet has, 
And well it does fulfil it : — 

I wish mine Jiadn't come so 
straight. 
But been a * crooked billet.' 



" And then there came a cuirassier 
And cut me on the chest ; 

He had no pity in his heart. 
For he had sieeVd his breast. 

"Next thing a lancer, with his 
lance. 

Began to thrust away ; 
I call'd for quarter, but, alas ! 

It was not Quarter-day. 

" He ran his spear right through 
my arm. 

Just here above the joint : — 
O Patty dear, it was no joke, 

Although it had a point. 



.JK 




TWKRE WELL THAT WK HAD NEVER MET. 



" With loss of blood I fainted " With kicks and cuts, and balls 
off, and blows. 

As dead as women do — I throb and ache all over ; 

But soon by charging over me, I'm quite convinc'd the field of 
The Coldstream brought me Mars 

to. Is not a field of clover ! 



108 



HOOD'S OWN. 



" O why did I a soldier turn 
For any royal Guelph ? 

I might have been a butcher, 
and 
In business for myself ! 

" O why did I the bounty take 1 
(And here he gasp'd for breath) 

My shilling'sworth of 'list is nail'd 
Upon the door of death ! 

" Without a coffin I shall lie 
And sleep my sleep eternal : 

Not even a shell — my only chance 
Of being made a Kernel ! 



" O Patty dear, our wedding-bells 
Will never ring at Chester ! 

Here I must lie in Honour's bed» 
That isn't worth a tester ! 

" Farewell, my regimental mates, 
With whom I used to dress ! 

My corps is changed, and I am 
now 
In quite another mess. 

" Farewell, my Patty dear, I have 
No dying consolations, 

Except, when I am dead, you'll go 
And see th' Illuminations." 



109 



a ^nnlngiral EBpnrt- 

To Harvey Williams, Esq., Regents Terrace, Portland Park. 

HONNERED SUR, 

Being maid a Feller of the Zoological Satiety, and I may- 
say by your Honner's meens, threw the carrachter your Humbel 
was favered with, and witch provd sattisfacktry to the Burds and 
Bests, considring I was well qualifid threw having Bean for so 
menny hears Hed Guardner to your Honner, besides lookin arter 
the Pigs and Poltry. Begs to axnolige my great fullness for the* 
Sam, and ham quit cumfittable and happy, sow much sow as 
wen I ham amung the Anymills to reckin myself hke Addam in 
Parodies, let alone my Velvoteens. 

Honnerd Sur, — awar of your parshalty for Liv Stox and Ket- 
tle Breading, ham indust to faver with a Statement of what is 
dun at the Farm, havin tacken provintial Noats wile I was at 
Kings-ton with a Pekin elefunt for chainges of Hair. As respex 
a curacy beg to say, tho the Sectary drawd up his Report from 
his hone datums and memmorandusses, and never set his eyes on 
my M.E.S.S., yet we has tallys to our tails in the Mane. 

Honnerd Sir, — I will sit out with the Qadripids, tho weave 
add the wust lux with them. Scarse anny of the Annymills 
with fore legs has more nor one Carf. Has to the Wappity 
Dears, hits wus then the Babby afore King Sollyman, but their 
bis for one littel Dear betwin five femail she hinds. The Sambo 
Dear as was sent by Mr. Spring was so unnatral has to heat up 
her Forn and in consequins the Sing-Sing is of no use for the 



110 HOODS OWN. 

lullabis. Has for Corsichan hits moor Boney nor ever, But the 
Axis on innqueries as too littel Axes about a munth hold. The 
Neil Gow has increst one Caif, but their his no Foles to the 
Quaggys. Their his too httel Zebry but one as not rum to 
grow ; the Report says, " the Mail Owen to the Nessessary Con- 
tiriement in regard to Spaice is verry smal." 

Honnerd Sur, the Satiety is verry rich in Assis, boath Com- 
mun assis and uncommon assis, and as the Report recumends 
will do my Inndever to git the Maltese Cross for your Honner. 
The Kangroses as reerd up a large smal fammily but looks to be 
ill nust and not well put to there feat, and at the suijesting of a 
feraail Feller too was put out to the long harmd Babboon to dry 
nus, but she was too violent and dandled the pure things to deth. 
The infunt Zebew is all so ded owen to Atemps with a backbord 
to prevent groing out of the sholdei-s, boath parrents being de- 
fourmd with umphs ; but the spin as is suposed was hert in the 
exspearmint, and it sudenly desist. Mr. Wallack will be glad to 
here the Wallachian Sheap has add sicks lams, but one was 
pisened by eating the ewes in the garden witch is fattle to kattle. 
Has to Gots we was going on prospus in the Kiddy line, but the 
Billy Gots becum so vishus and did so menny butts a weak, we 
was obleeged to do away with the Entire. As regards Rabits a 
contiguous dissorder havin got into the Stox, we got rid of the 
Hole let alone one Do and Brewd, witch was all in good Helth 
up to Good Fridy wen the Mother brekfisted on her bunnis. 
The increas in the Groth of Hairs as bean maid an object, and 
the advice tacken of Mr. Prince and Mr. Roland, who recumen- 
did Killin one of the Bares for the porpus of Greece. We hav , 
a grate number of ginny pigs — their is moor than twenty of 
them in one Pound. 



A ZOOLOGICAL REPORT. Ill 

About Struthus Burds the Ostreaches is in perfic helth and 
full of Plums. The femail Hen lade too egs wile the Committy 
was sittin and we hop they will atch, as we put them under a 
she Hemew as was sittin to Mr. Harvy. He propos breading 
Busturds xept we hav not got a singel specieman of the specious. 
Galnatious Burds. I am sory to say The Curryso has not 
bread. Hits the moor disapinting as we considder these Birds as 
our Crax. We sucksided in razing a grate menny Turkys and 
some intresting expearimints was maid on them by the Commity 
and the Counsel on Crismus day. Lickwise on Poltry Fouls 
with regard to their being of Utility for the Tabel and " under 
the latter head " the report informs " sum results hav bean ob- 
tained witch air considdered very satisfactry," but their will be 
more degested trials of the subjex as the Report says " the ex- 
pearimints must be repetid in order to istablish the accuracy of 
the deduckshuns." Wat is remarkable the hens pressented by 
Mr. Crockford hav not provd grate layers tho provided with a 
Better Yard and plentey of Turf. We hav indevoured to bread 
the grate Cok of the Wud onely we have no Wud for him to be 
Cok of — and now for acjuotic Warter Burds we hav wite Swons 
but they hav not any cygnitures, and the Black is very unrisen- 
able as to expens but Mr. Hunt has offered to black one very lo 
on condishun hits not aloud to go into the Warter. The Polish 
swons wood hav bread onely they did not lay. The Satiety con- 
tanes a grete number of Gease and witch thriv all most as well 
as they wood on a commun farm and the Sam with Dux. We 
wonted to have dukelings from the Mandereen Dux but they 
shook there Heds. Too ears a go a qantitty of flownders and 
also a qantitty of heals of witch an exact acount is recordid 
wear turned into one of the Ponds but there State as not bean 



112 HOOD'S OWN. 

looked into since they were plaiced their out of unwillingnes to 
disturb the Hotter. At pressent their exists in one Pond a stock 
of Karps and in too others a number of Gould Fish of the com- 
mun Sort. The number left as bean correcly tacken and the 
amount checkt by the Pellycanes and Herrins and Spunbills and 
Gulls and other piskiverous Burds. Looking at the whole of the 
Farm in one Pint of Vue we hav ben most suckcesful with Rabits 
and Poltry and Piggins and Ginny Pigs but the breading of sich 
being well none to Skullboys, I beg as to their methodistical 
principals to refer your Honner to Master Gorge wen he cums 
home for the Holedays. I furgot to say the Parnassian Sheap 
was acomidated with a Pen to it self but produst nothin worth 
riting. But the attemps we have maid this here, will be prosy- 
cutid next here wkh new Vigors. 

Honnerd Sur, — their is an aggitating Skeam of witch I hum 
bly aprove very hiley. The plan is owen to sum of the Femail 
Fellers, — and that is to make the Farm a Farm Ornay. For in- 
stances the Buffloo and Fallo and cetra to have their horns 
Gildid and the Mufflons and Sheaps is to hav Pink ribbings 
round their nex. The munkys is to ware fancy dressis and the 
Ostreaches is to have their plums stuck in their beds, and tho 
Pecox tales will be always spred out on fraim wurks like the his- 
paliers. All the Bares is to be tort to Dance to Wippert's Quad- 
rils and the Lions mains is to be subjective to pappers and the 
curling-tongues. The gould and silver Fesants is to be PolHsht 
evry day with Plait Powder and the Cammils and Drumdearis 
and other defourmd anymills is to be paddid to hide their Cru- 
kidnes. ~Mr. Howard is to file down the tusks of the wild Bores 
and Peckaris and the Spoons of the Spoonbills is to be maid as 
like the Kings Patten as posible. The elifunt will be himbelsht 



A ZOOLOGICAL REPORT. 113 

with a Sugger candid Castle maid by Gunter and the Flaming- 
goes will be toucbt up with French ruge and the Damisels will 
hav chaplits of heartifitial Flours. The Sloath is proposd to hav 
an ellegunt Stait Bed — and the Bever is to ware one of Per- 
ren's lite Warter Proof Hats — and the Balld. Vulters baldnes will 
be hided by a small Whig from Trewfits. The Grains will be 
put into trousirs and the Hippotomus tite laced for a waste. Ex- 
perience will dictait menny more imbellishing modes, with witch 
I conclud that I am 

Your Honners 

Very obleeged and humbel former'Servant, 

Stephen Humphreys. 



114 



€^t 3Jnti nt tliB Mnxt 



" Alone I did it !— Boy I " 

C0&10LANU8. 



I SAY, little Boy at the Nore, 

Do you come from the small Isle of Man ? 
Why, your history a mystery must be, — 

Come tell us as much as you can, 

Little Boy at the Nore ! 

You live it seems wholly on water. 

Which your Gambler calls living in clover ; — 

But how comes it, if that is the case, 
You're eternally half seas over, — 

Little Boy at the Nore? 

While you ride — while you dance — while you float — 
Never mind your imperfect orthography; — 

But give us as well as you can. 
Your watery auto-biography, 

Little Boy at the Nore ! 

LITTLE BOY AT THE NORE LOQUITUR. 

I'm the tight little Boy at the Nore, 

In a sort of sea negus I dwells ; 
Half and half 'twixt salt water and Port, 

I'm reckon'd the first of the swells — 

I'm the Boy at the Nore ! 

* A buoy moored at the Nore, near the mouth of the Thames. 



THE BOY AT THE NORE. 115 

I lives with my toes to the flounders, 
And watches through long days and nights ; 

Yet, cruelly eager, men look — 

To catch the first glimpse of my lights — 

I'm the Boy at the Nore. 

I never gets cold in the head, 

So my life on salt water is sweet, — 
I think I owes much of my health, 

To being well used to wet feet — 

As the Boy at the Nore. 

There's one thing, I'm never in debt : 

Nay ! — I liquidates more than I oughter* ; 
So the man to beat Cits as goes by. 

In keeping the head above water, 

Is the Boy at the Nore. 

I've seen a good deal of distress. 

Lots of Breakers in Ocean's Gazette ; 
They should do as I do — rise o'er all; 
Aye, a good floating capital get. 

Like the Boy at the Nore ! 

I'm a'ter the sailors own heart. 

And cheers him, in deep water rolling ; 
And the friend of all friends to Jack Junk, 

Ben Backstay, Tom Pipes, and Tom Bowling, 
Is the Boy at the Nore ! 

Could I e'er but grow up, I'd be off" 

For a week to make love with my wheedles ; 

If the tight little Boy at the Nore 

Could but catch a nice girl at the Needles, 

We'd have tico ixi the Nore! 



* A word caught from some American Trader in passing. 



116 



HOOD'S OWN. 



They thinks little of sizes on water, 
On big waves the tiny one skulks, — 

While the river has Men of War on it — 

Yes — the Thames is oppressed with Great Hulks, 
And the Boy's at the Nore ! 

But I've done — for the water is heaving 

Round my body, as though it would sink it ! 

And I've been so long pitching and tossing, 
That sea-sick — you'd hardly now think it — 
Is the Boy at the Nore ! 




SOMETHING ABOVK THE COMMON, 



117 



Snjiiisntiiana 



" None despise puns but those wko cannot make them." 

Swift. 



To the JEditor of the Comic Annual. 
Sir, 

As I am but an occasional reader in the temporary indul- 
gence of intellectual relaxation, I have. but recently become cog- 
nizant of the metropolitan publication of Mr. Murray's Mr. 
Croker's Mr. Boswell's Dr. Johnson : a circumstance the more to 
be deprecated, for if I had been simultaneously aware of that 
amalgamation of miscellaneous memoranda, I could have contri- 
buted a personal quota of characteristic colloquial anecdotes to 
the biographical reminiscences of the multitudinous lexicographer, 
which, although founded on the basis of indubitable veracity, has 
never transpired among the multifarious effusions of that stu- 
pendous complication of mechanical ingenuity, which, according 
to the technicalities in usage in our modern nomenclature, has 
obtained the universal cognomen of the press. Expediency im- 
periously dictates that the nominal identity of the hereditary 
kinsman, from whom I derive my authoritative responsibilit}'^, 
shall be inviolably and umbrageously obscured : but in future 
variorum editions his voluntary addenda to the already inestima- 
ble concatenation of circumstantial particularisation might typo- 
graphically be discriminated from the literary accumulations of 



118 HOOD'S OWN. 

the indefatigable Boswell and the vivacious Piozzi, by the signifi- 
cant classification of Boz, Poz, and Coz. 

In posthumously eliciting and philosophically elucidating the 
phenomena of defunct luminaries, whether in reference to corpo- 
real, physiognomical, or metaphysical attributes, justice demands 
the strictest scrupulosity, in order that the heterogeneous may 
not preponderate over the homogeneous in the critical analysis. 
Metaphorically speaking, I am rationally convinced that the ope- 
rative point I am about to develop will remove a pertinacious 
film from the eye of the biographer of the memorable Dr. John- 
son ; and especially with reference to that reiterated verbal aphor- 
ism so preposterously ascribed to his conversational inculcation, 
namely, that " he who would make a pun would pick a pocket ;" 
however irrelevant such a doctrinarian maxim to the irrefrangible 
fact, that in that colossal monument of etymological erudition 
erected by the stupendous Doctor himself (of course implying 
his inestimable Dictionary ), the paramount gist, scope, and ten- 
dency of his laborious researches was obviously to give as many 
meanings as possible to one word. In order, however, to place 
hypothesis on the immutable foundation of fact, I will, with your 
periodical permission, adduce a few Johnsonian repartees from my 
cousin's anecdotical memorabiha, which will perspicuously evolve 
the synthetical conclusion, that the inimitable author of Rasselas 
did not dogmatically predicate such an aggravated degree of 
moral turpitude in the perpetration of a double entendre. 

Apologistically requesting indulgence for the epistolary laxity 
of an unpremeditated effusion, I remain, Sir, 

Your very humble obedient servant, 

Septimus Reardon. 

Lichfield^ October 1, 1833. 



JOHNSONJANA. 



119 



"Do you really believe, Dr. Johnson," said a Liclifield lady, 
" in the dead walking after death ?" — " Madam," said Johnson, 
" I have no doubt on the subject ; I have heard the Dead March 
in Saul." " You really believe then, Doctor, in ghosts ?" — " Ma- 
dam," said Johnson, " I think appearances are in their favour." 

The Doctor was notoriously very superstitious. The same 
lady once asked him — " if he ever felt any presentiment at a 
winding-sheet in the candle." — " Madam," said Johnson, " if a 




AN ILLUMINATED MS. 



mould candle, it doubtless indicates death, and that somebody 
will go out like a snuff : but whether at Hampton WicJc or in 
Greece, must depend upon the graves^"* 

Dr. Johnson was not comfortable in the Hebrides. " Pray, 
Doctor, how did you sleep ?" inquired a benevolent Scotch hostess, 
who was so extremely hospitable that some hundreds always 



120 HOOD'S OWN. 

occupied the same bed. — " Madam," said Johnson, " I had not a 
wink the whole night long ; sleep seemed to ^ee from my eyelids, 
and to bug from all the rest of my body." 

The Doctor and Boswell once lost themselves in the Isle of 
Muck, and the latter said they must " spier their way at the first 
body they met." " Sir," said Dr. Johnson, " you're a scoundrel ; 
you may spear anybody you like, but I am not going to ' run 
a-Muck and tilt at all I meet' " 

"What do you think of whisky. Dr. Johnson?" hiccupped 
Boswell after emptying a sixth tumbler of toddy. " Sir," said 
the Doctor, " it penetrates my very soul like 'the small-still 
voice of conscience,' and doubtless the worm of the still is the 
* worm that never dies.' " Boswell afterwards inquired the Doc- 
tor's opinion on illicit distillation, and how the great moralist 
would act in an affray between the smugglers and the Excise. 
" If I went by the letter of the law I should assist the Customs, 
but according to the spirit I should stand by the contrabands." 

The Doctor was always very satirical on the want of timber in 
the North. " Sir," he said to the young Lau*d of Icombally, 
who was going to join his regiment, " may Providence preserve 
you in battle, and especially your nether hmbs. You may grow 
a walking-stick here, but you must import a wooden leg." At 
Dunsinane the old prejudice broke out. "Sir," said he to Bos- 
well, " Macbeth was an idiot ; he ought to have known that 
every wood in Scotland might be carried in a man's hand. The 
Scotch, Sir, are like the frogs in the fable : if they had a log 
they would make a King of it." 

Boswell one day expatiated at some length on the moral and 
religious character of his countrymen, and remarked triumphantly 
that there was a Cathedral at Kirkwall, and the remains of a 



JOHNSONIANA. 121 

Bishop's Palace. " Sir," said Johnson, " it must hav e been the 
poorest of Sees : take your Rum and Egg and Mull altogether, 
and they won't provide for a Bishop." 

East India company is the worst all company. A Lady fresh 
from Calcutta once endeavoured to curry Johnson's favour by 
talking of nothing but howdahs, doolies, and bungalows, till the 
Doctor took, as usual, to tiffin. " Madam," said he, in a tone 
that would have scared a tiger out of a jungle, " India's very well 
for a rubber or for a bandana, or for a cake of ink ; but what 
with its Bhurtpore, Phlumpore, Barrackpore, Hyderapore, Singa- 
pore, and Nagpore, its Hyderabad, Astrabad, Bundlebad, Sind- 
bad, and Guzzaratbadbad, it's a poor and bad country altogether." 

Master M., after plaguing Miss Seward and Dr. Darwin, and 
a large tea party at Lichfield, said to his mother that he would 
be good if she would give him an apple. " My dear child," said 
the parent, feeling herself in the presence of a great moralist, 
" you ought not to be good on any consideration of gain, for 
'virtue is its own reward.' You ought to be good disinte- 
restedly, and without thinking what you are to get for it." 
" Madam," said Dr. Johnson, " you are a fool ; would you have 
the boy good for nothing ? " 

The same lady once consulted the Doctor on the degree of 
turpitude to be attached to her son's robbing an orchard. " Ma- 
dam," said Johnson, " it all depends upon the weight of the boy. 
I remember my schoolfellow Davy Garrick, who was always a 
little fellow, robbing a dozen of orchards with impunity, but the 
very first time I climbed up an apple tree, for I was always a 
heavy boy, the bough broke with me, and it was called a judg- 
ment. I suppose that's why Justice is represented with a pair 
of scales." 



122 



HOOD'S OWN. 



Caleb Whitefoord, the famous punster, once inquired seriously 
of Dr. Johnson, whether he really considered that a man ought 
to be transported, like Barrington, the pickpocket, for being 
guilty of a double meaning. "Sir," said Johnson, "if a man 
means well, the more he means the better." 




SOW-WESTER OFF THE CAPE:— PIGS IN THE TROUGH OP THE fi-EA. 



123 




KETCH I NQ ITS PREY. 



TO A LADY ON HER DEPARTURE FOR INDIA. 

Go where the waves run rather Holborn-hilly 
And tempests make a soda-water sea, 
Almost as rough as our rough Piccadilly, 

And think of me ! 



Go where the mild Madeira ripens lier juice, — 
A Wine more praised than it deserves to be ! 
Go pass the Cape, just capable of ver-juice, 

And think of me ! 



124 HOOD'S OWN. 

Go where the Tiger in the darkness prowleth, 
Making a midnight meal of he and she ; 
Go where the Lion in his hunger howleth, 

And think of me ! 

Go where the serpent dangerously coileth, 
Or lies along at full length like a tree, 
Go where the Suttee in her own soot broileth, 
And think of me ! 

Go where with human notes the Parrot dealeth 
In mono-poZZy-logue with tongue as free, 
And like a woman, all she can revealeth, 

And think of me ! 

Go to the land of muslin and nankeening, 
And parasols of straw where hats should be, 
Go to the land of slaves and palankeening. 

And think of me ! 

Go to the land of Jungles and of vast hills, 
And tall bamboos — may none bamboozle thee ! 
Go gaze upon their Elephants and Castles, 

And think of me ! 

Go where a cook must always be a currier. 
And parch the pepper'd palate like a pea. 
Go where the fierce musquito is a worrier. 

And think of me ! 

Go where the maiden on a marriage plan goes, 
Consign'd for wedlock to Calcutta's quay, 
Where woman goes for mart, the same as mangoes, 
And think of me ! 

Go where the sun is very hot and fervent, 
Go to the land of pagod and rupee, 
Where every black will be your slave and servant. 
And think of me ! 



125 




THE STAMP DUTY 01 



COTCH LINKN. 



I n II u H 



TO A SCOTCH GIRL, WASHING LINEN AFTER HER COUNTRY FASHION. 

Well done and vvetly, thou Fair Maid of Perth ! 

Thou mak'st a washing picture well deserving 

The pen and pencilling of Washington Irving : 
Like dripping Naiad, pearly from her birth, 
Dashing about the water of the Firth, 

To cleanse the calico of Mrs. Skirving, 

And never from thy dance of duty swerving 
As there were nothing else than dirt on earth ! 
Yet what is thy reward ? Nay, do not start ! 

I do not mean to give thcc a new damper. 
But while thou fillest this industrious part 
- Of washer, wearer, mangier, presser, stamper, 
Deserving better character — thou art 

What Bodkin would but call — " a common trampcr." 



126 



^uitt in n :f hnsutB-ISnnt 



A SEA ECLOGUE. 



I apprehend you 1"— Schooi, of Rbfobm. 



Boatman. 
Shove off there ! — ship the rudder, Bill — cast off ! she's under way ! 

Mrs. F. 
She's under what ? — I hope she's not ! good gracious, what a spray ! 

Boatman. 
Run out the jib, and rig the boom ! keep clear of those two brigs ! 

Mrs. F. 
I hope they don't intend some joke by running of their rigs ! 

Boatman. 
Bill, shift them bags of ballast aft — she's rather out of trim ! 

Mrs. F. 
Great bags of stones ! they're pretty things to help a boat to swim ! 

Boatman. 
The wind is fresh — if she don't scud, it's not the breeze's fault ! 

Mrs. F. 
Wind fresh, indeed, I never felt the air so full of salt ! 

Boatman. 
That Schooner, Bill, harn't left the roads, with oranges and nuts ! 

Mrs. F. 
If seas have roads, they're very rough — I never felt such ruts ! 

Boatman. 
It's neap, ye see, she's heavy lade, and couldn't pass the bar. ^ 

Mrs. F. 
The bar ! what, roads with turnpikes too ? I wonder where they are ! 



PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. 127 

Boatman. 
Ho ! brig ahoy ! hard up ! hard up ! that lubber cannot steer ! 

Mrs. F. 
Yes, yes, — hard up upon a rock ! I know some danger's near ! 
Lord, there's a wave ! it's coming in ! and roaring like a bull ! 

Boatman. 
Nothing, Ma'am, but a little slop ! go large, Bill ! keep her full ! 

Mrs. F. 
What, keep her full ! what daring work ! when full she must go down ! 

Boatman. 
Why, Bill, it lulls ! ease off a bit — it's coming off the town ! 
Steady your helm ! we'll clear the Pint ! lay right for yonder pink ! 

Mrs. F. 
Be steady — well, I hope they can ! but they've got a pint of drink ! 

Boatman. 
Bill, give that sheet another haul — she'll fetch it up this reach. 

Mrs. F. 
I'm getting rather pale, I know, and they see it by that speech ! 
I wonder what it is, now, but — I never felt so queer ! 

Boatman. 
Bill, mind your luff — why Bill, I say, she's yawing — keep her near ! 

Mrs. F. 
Keep near ! we're going further off; the land's behind our backs. 

Boatman. 
Be easy. Ma'am, its all correct, that's only 'cause we tacks : 
We shall have to beat about a bit, — Bill, keep her out to see. 

Mrs. F. 
Beat who about ? keep who at sea ? — how black they look at me ! 

Boatman. 
It's veering round — I knew it would ! off with her head ! stand by ! 

Mrs. F. 
Off with her head ! whose ? where ? what with ? — an axe I seem to spy ! 

Boatman. 
She cannot keep her own, you see ; we shall have to pull her in ! 

Mrs. F. 
They'll drown me, and take all I have ! my life's not worth a pin ! 



128 HOOD'S OWN. 

Boatman. 
Look out you know, be ready, Bill — just when she takes the sand! 

Mrs. F. 
The sand — O Lord ! to stop my mouth ! how everything is plann'd ! 

Boatman. 
The handspike, Bill — quick, bear a hand ! now Ma'am, just step ashore ! 

Mrs. F. 
What ! an't I going to be kill'd — and welter'd in my gore 1 
Well, Heaven be praised ! but I'll not go a sailing any more ! 



129 



(S)lt tn f Brrt|, 

THE INVENTOR OF THE PATENT PERRYAN PEN, 



•• In this good work, Penn appears the greatest, usefullest of God's instruments. 
Firm and unbending when the exigency requires it— soft and yielding when rigid 
inflexibility is not a desideratum, — fluent and flowing, at need, for eloquent rapidity — 
slow and retentive in cases of deliberation— never spluttering or by amplification 
going wide of the mark— never splitting, if it can be helped, with any one, but ready 
to wear itself out rather in their service- all things as it were with all men,— ready 
to embrace the hand of Jew, Christian, or Mahometan,— heavy with the German, 
light with the Italian, oblique with the English, upright with the Roman, backward 
in coming forward with the Hebrew,— in short, for flexibility, amiability, constitu- 
tional durability, general ability, and universal utility, it would be hard to find a 
parallel to the great Penn."— Pkkky's Charactkbistics of a Settler. 



I. 
O ! Patent, Pen-inventing Perrian Perry ! 

Friend of the Goose and Gander, 
That now unplueked of their quill-feathers wander, 
Cackling, and gabbling, dabbling, making merry, 

About the happy Fen, 
Untroubled for one penny-worth of pen, 
For which they chant thy praise all Britain through, 
From Goose-Green unto Gander-Cleugh ! — 

II. 
Friend to all Author-kind — 
Whether of Poet or of Proser, — 
Thou art composer unto the composer 
Of pens, — yea, patent vehicles for Mind 
To carry it on jaunts, or more extensive 

Perrygrinations through the realms of Thought ; 
Each plying from the Comic to the Pensive, 
An Omnibus of intellectual sort! 



130 HOOD'S OWN. 



Modem Improvements in their course we feel ; 
And while to iron-railroads heavy wares, 
Dry goods, and human bodies, pay their fares, 

Mind flies on steel. 
To Penrith, Penrhyn, even to Penzance. 

Nay, penetrates, perchance, 
To Pennsylvania, or, without rash vaunts, 
To where the Penguin haunts ! 



In times bygone, when each man cut his quill. 

With little Perryan skill. 
What horrid, awkward, bungling tools of trade 
Appear'd the writing implements home-made ! 
What Pens were sliced, hew'd, hack'd, and haggled out, 
Slit or unslit, with many a various snout. 
Aquiline, Roman, crooked, square, and snubby. 

Stumpy and stubby ; 
Some capable of ladye-billets neat. 
Some only fit for Ledger-keeping Clerk, 
And some to grub down Peter Stubbs his mark. 
Or smudge through some illegible receipt; 
Others in florid caligraphic plans. 
Equal to Ships, and wiggy Heads, and Swans ! 

V. 

To try in any common inkstands, then. 
With all their miscellaneous stocks, 

To find a decent pen, 
Was like a dip into a lucky box : 

You drew, — and got one very curly. 
And split like endive in some hurly-burly ; 
The next, unslit, and square at end, a spade ; 
The third, incipient pop-gun, not yet made ; 
The fourth a broom ; the fifth of no avail, 
Turn'd upwards, like a rabbit's tail ; 
And last, not least, by way of a relief, 
A stump that Master Richard, James or John, 



ODE TO PERRY. 131 



Had tried his cundle-cookery upon, 
Making " roast-beef!" 



Not so thy Perryan Pens ! 
True to their M's and N's, 
They do not with a whizzing zig-zag split, 
Straddle, turn up their noses, sulk, and spit, 
Or drop large dots, 
Huge fullstop blots. 
Where even semicolons were unfit. 
They w^ill not frizzle up, or, broom-like, drudge 

In sable sludge — 
Nay, bought at proper " Patent Perryan" shops, 
They write good grammar, sense, and mind their stops : 
Compose both prose and verse, the sad or merry — 
For when the Editor, whose pains compile 
The grown-up Annual, or the Juvenile, 
Vaunteth his articles, not women's, men's, 
But lays "by the most celebrated Pens," 
What means he but thy Patent Pens, my Perry ? 

VII. 

Pleasant they are to feel ! 
So firm ! so flexible ! composed of steel 
So finely temper'd — fit for tenderest Miss 

To give her passion breath. 
Or Kings to sign the warrant stern of death — 
But their supremest merit still is this, 

Write with them all your days, 
Tragedy, Comedy, all kinds of plays — 
(No Dramatist should ever be without 'em) — 

And, just conceive the bliss, — 
There is so little of the goose about 'em. 

One's safe from any hiss I 



Ah ! who can paint that first great awful night, 
Big with a blessing or a blight, 



132 HOOD'S OWN. 

When the poor Dramatist, all fume and fret, 
Fuss, fidget, fancy, fever, funking, fright. 
Ferment, fault-fearing, faintness — more f 's yet : 
Flush'd, frigid, flurried, flinching, fitful, flat. 
Add famish'd, fuddled, and fatigued, to that ; 
Funeral, fate-foreboding — sits in doubt. 
Or rather doubt with hope, a wretched marriage. 
To see his Play upon the stage come out ; 
No stage to him ! it is Thalia's carriage, 
And he is sitting on the spikes behind it, 
Striving to look as if he didn't mind it ! 

IX. 

Witness how Beazley vents upon his hat 
His nervousness, meanwhile his fate is dealt : 
He kneads, moulds, pummels it, and sits it flat, 
Squeezes and twists it up, until the felt 
That went a Beaver in, comes out a Rat ! 
Miss Mitford had mis-givings, and in fright. 

Upon Rienzi's night, 
Gnaw'd up one long kid glove, and all her bag. 

Quite to a rag. 
Knowles has confess'd he trembled as for life. 

Afraid of his own " Wife ;" 
Poole told me that he felt a monstrous pail 
Of water backing him, all down his spine, — 
" The ice-brook's temper" — pleasant to the chine ! 
For fear that Simpson and his Co. should fail. 
Did Lord Glengall not frame a mental pray'r, 
Wishing devoutly he was Lord knows where ? 
Nay, did not Jerrold, in enormous drouth. 
While doubtful of Nell Gwynne's eventful luck, 

Squeeze out and suck 
More oranges with his one fevered mouth, 
Than Nelly had to hawk from North to South ? 
Yea, Buckstone, changing colour like a mullet. 
Refused, on an occasion, one, twice, thrice. 
From his best friend, an ice. 
Lest it should hiss in his own red-hot gullet. 



ODE TO PERRY. . 133 



Doth punning Peake not sit upon the points 
Of his own jokes, and shake in all his joints, 

During their trial ? 

'Tis past denial. 
And does not Poeock, feeling, like a peacock, 
All eyes upon him, turn to very meacock ? 
And does not Planche, tremulous and blank. 
Meanwhile his personages tread the boards, 

Seem goaded by sharp swords. 
And call'd upon himself to " walk the plank 1" 
As for the Dances, Charles and George to boot. 

What have they more 
Of ease and rest, for sole of either foot. 
Than bear that capers on a hotted floor 1 

XI. 

Thus pending — does not Mathews, at sad shift 
For voice, croak like a frog in waters fenny ? — 
Serle seem upon the surly seas adrift ? — 
And Kenny think he's going to Kilkenny ? — 
Haynes Bayly feel Old ditto, with the note 
Of Cotton in his ear, a mortal grapple 

About his arms, and Adam's apple 
Big as a fine Dutch codling in his throat ? 
Did Rodwell, on his chimney-piece, desire 
Or not to take a jump into the fire ? 
Did Wade feel as composed as music can 1 
And was not Bernard his own Nervous Man 1 
Lastly, don't Farley, a bewildered elf. 
Quake at the Pantomime he loves to cater, 
And ere its changes ring, transform himself? — 

A frightful mug of human delf 1 
A spirit-bottle — empty of " the cratur ?" 

A leaden-platter ready for the shelf? 

A thunderstruck dumb-waiter 1 
xu. 
To clench the fact. 

Myself, once guilty of one small rash act, 



134 



HOOD'S OWN. 



Committed at the Surrey, 
Quite in a hurry, 
Felt all this flurry, 
Corporal worry. 
And spiritual scurry. 
Dram-devil — attic curry ! 
All going well, 
From prompter's bell, 
Until befell 




HIS-TRIONIC. 



A hissing at some dull imperfect dunce — 

There's no denying 
I felt in all four elements at once ! 
My head was swimming, while my arms were flying ! 
My legs for running — all the rest was frying ! 



ODE TO PERRY. 



136 



Thrice welcome, tlien, for this peculiar use, 

Thy pens so innocent of goose ! 
For this shall Dramatists, when they make merry, 
Discarding Port and Sherry, 
Drink—" Perry !" 
Perry, whose fame, pennated, is let loose 

To distant lands, 
Perry, admitted on all hands, 
Text, running, German, Roman, 
For Patent Perryans approach'd by no man ! 
And when, ah me ! far distant be the hour ! 
Pluto shall call thee to his gloomy bow'r. 
Many shall be thy pensive mourners, many ! 
And Penury itself shall club its penny 
To raise thy monument in lofty place ; 
Higher than York's or any son of War ; 
Whilst time all meaner effigies shall bury. 

On due pentagonal base 
Shall stand the Parian, Perryan, perriwigg'd Perry, 
Perch'd on the proudest peak of Penman Mawr ! 




"PENNSYLVANIA, 



136 



€^t SsUnL 



" Oh had I some sweet little Isle of my own I" 

MOOBE. 



If the author of the Irish Melodies had ever had a little Isle so 
much his own as I have possessed, he might not have found it so 
sweet as the song anticipates. It has been iny fortune, like 
Robinson Crusoe, and Alexander Selkirk, to be thrown on such a 
desolate spot, and I felt so lonely, though I had a follower, that I 
wish Moore had been there. I had the honour of being in that 
tremendous action off Finisterre, which proved an end of the 
earth to many a brave fellow. I was ordered with a boarding 
party to forcibly enter the Santissima Trinidada, but in the act of 
climbing into the quarter-gallery, which, however, gave no quarter, 
was rebutted by the butt-end of a marine's gun, who remained 
the quarter-master of the place. I fell senseless into the sea, and 
should no doubt have perished in the waters of oblivion, but for 
the kindness of John Monday, who picked me up to go adrift 
with him in one of the ship's boats. All our oars were carried 
away, that is to say, we did not carry away any oars, and while 
shot was raining, our feeble hailing was unheeded. In short, as 
Shakspeare says, we were drifted off by " the current of a heady 
fight." As may be supposed, our boat was anything but the 
jolly-boat, for we had no provisions to spare in the middle of an 
immense waste. We were, in fact, adrift in the cutter with 
nothing to cut. We had not even junk for junketing, and 



THE ISLAND. 



137 



nothing but salt-water, even if the wind should blow fresh. 
Famine indeed seemed to stare each of us in the face ; that is, 
we stared at one another; but if men turn cannibals, a great 
allowance must be made for a short ditto. We were truly in a 
very disagreeable pickle, with oceans of brine and no beef, and, 




THE POUND OF F L K I 



like Shylock, I fancy we would have exchanged a pound of gold 
for a pound of flesh. The more we drifted Nor, the more sharply 
we incHned to gnaw, — but when we drifted Sow, we found 
nothing like pork. No bread rose in the east, and in the oppo- 
site point we were equally disappointed. We could not compass 
a meal anyhow, but got mealy-mouth'd, notwithstanding. We 
could see the Sea mews to the eastward, flying over what Byron 
calls the Gardens of Gull. We saw plenty of Grampus, but they 



138 HOOD'S OWN. 

were useless to all intents and porpusses, and we had no bait for 
catching a bottle-nose. 

Time hung heavily on our hands, for our fast days seemed to 
pass very slowly, and our strength was rapidly sinking from 
being so much afloat. Still we nourished Hope, though we had 
nothing to give her. But at last we lost all prospect of land, if 
one may so say when no land was in sight. The weather got 
thicker as we were getting thinner ; and though we kept a sharp 
watch, it was a very bad look-out. We could see nothing 
before us but nothing to eat and drink. At last the fog cleared 
off, and we saw something like land right a-head, but alas the 
wind was in our teeth as well as in our stomachs. We could do 
nothing but keep her near, and as we could not keep ourselves 
full, we luckily suited the course of the boat ; so that after a 
tedious beating about — for the wind not only gives blows, but 
takes a great deal of beating — we came incontinently to an island. 
Here we landed, and our first impulse on coming to- dry land was 
to drink. There was a little brook at hand, to which we applied 
oui-selves till it seemed actually to murmur at our inordinate 
thirst. Our next care was to look for some food, for though our 
hearts were full at our escape, the neighbouring i-egion was 
dreadfully empty. We succeeded in getting some natives out of 
their bed, and ate them, poor things, as fast as they got up, but 
with some difficulty in getting them open ; a common oyster 
knife would have been worth the price of a sceptre. Our next 
concern was to look out for a lodging, and at last we discovered 
an empty cave, reminding me of an old inscription at Ports- 
mouth, " The hole of this place to let." We took the precaution 
of roUing some great stones to the entrance, for fear of last 
lodgers, — that some bear might come home from business, or a 



THE ISLAND. 139 

tiger to tea. Here, under the rock, we slept without rocking, 
and when, through the night's failing, the day broke, we saw 
with the first instalment of light that we were upon a small 
desert isle, now for the first time an Isle of Man. Accordingly, 
the birds in this wild solitude were so httle wild that a number 
of boobies and noddies allowed themselves to be taken by hand, 
though the asses were not such asses as to be caught. There 
was an abundance of rabbits, which we chased unremittingly, as 
Hunt runs Warren ; and when coats and trowsers fell short, we 
clothed our skins with theirs, till, as Monday said, we each re- 
presented a burrow. In this work Monday was the tailor, for 
like the maker of shadowy rabbits and cocks upon the wall, he 
could turn his hand to anything. He became a potter, a car- 
penter, a butcher, and a baker — that is to say, a master butcher 
and a master baker, for I became merely his journeyman. Re- 
duced to a state of nature, Monday's favourite phrase for our 
condition, I found my being an officer fulfilled no office ; to con- 
fess the truth, I made a very poor sort of savage, whereas 
Monday, I am pei-suaded, would have been made a chief by any 
tribe whatever. Our situations in Ijfe were completely reversed ; 
he became the leader and I the follower, or rather, to do jus- 
tice to his attachment and ability, he became Hke a strong big 
brother to a helpless little one. 

We remained in a state of nature five years, when at last a 
whaler of Hull — though- the hull was not visible — showed her 
masts on the horizon, an- event which was telegraphed by Mon- 
day, who began saying his prayers and dancing the College 
Hornpipe at the same time with equal fervour. We contrived 
by hghting a fire, literally a feu-de-joie, to make a sign of dis- 
tress, and a boat came to our signal deliverance. We had a 



140 



HOOD'S OWN. 



prosperous passage home, where the reader may anticipate the 
happiness that awaited us ; but not the trouble that was in store 
for me and Monday. Our parting was out of the question ; we 
would both rather have parted from our sheet anchor. We at- 
tempted to return to our relative rank, but we had lived so long 
in a kind of liberty and equality, tliat we could never resume our 
grades. The state of nature remained uppermost with us both, 




IN EMBARRASSED CIRCUMSTANCES. 

and Monday still watched over and tended me like Dominie 
Sampson with the boy Harry Bertram ; go where I would, he 
followed with the dogged pertinacity of Tom Pipes ; and do 
what I might, he interfered with the resolute vigour of John 
Dory in Wild Oats. This disposition involved us daily, nay, 
hourlv, in the most embarrassing circumstances; and how the 



THE ISLAND. 



141 



connexion might have terminated I know not, if it had not been 
speedily dissolved in a very unexpected manner. One morning 
poor Monday was found on his bed in a sort of convulsion, 
which barely enabled him to grasp my hand, and to falter out, 
" Good-bye, I am go — going — back — to a state of nature." 







A OOOD ACTION MEETS ITS OWN REWARD. 



142 




SINGLE BLESSEDNESS, 



JIumliBr (DtiB 



VERSIFIED FROM THE P^OSE OF A YOUNG LADY. 



It's very hard ! — and so it is, 

To live in such a row, — 

And witness this that every Miss 

But me, has got a Beau. — 

For Love goes calling up and 

down, 
But here he seems to shun; 
I'm sure ho has been asked 

enough 
To call at Number One ! 



I'm sick of all the double knocks 
That come to Number Four ! — 
At Number Three, I often see 
A Lover at the door ; — 
And one in blue, at Number 

Two, 
Calls daily like a dun, — 
I'ts very hard they come so 

near 
And not to Number One ! 



NUMBER ONE. 



143 



Miss Bell I hear has got a dear 

Exactly to her mind, — 

By sitting at the window pane 

Without a bit of blind ; — 

But I go in the balcony, 

Which she has never done, 

Yet arts that thrive at Number 

Five 
Don't take at Number One ! 

'Tis hard with plenty in the street, 
And plenty passing by, — 
There's nice young men at Num- 
ber Ten, 
But only rather shy ; — 
And Mrs. Smith across the way 
Has got a grown-up son, 
But la ! he hardly seems to know 
There is a Number One ! 

There's Mr. Wick at Number 

Nine, 
But he's intent on pelf, 
And though he's pious will not 

love 
His neighbour as himself. — 
At Number Seven there was a 

sale — 
The goods had quite a run ! 
And here I've got my single lot 
On hand at Number One ! 

My mother often sits at work 
And talks of props and stays. 
And what a comfort I shall be 
la her declining days : — 
The very maids about the house 
Have set me down a nun. 
The sweethearts all belong to them 
That call at Number One ! 



Once only when the flue took fire, 
One Friday afternoon, 
Young Mr. Long came kindly in 
And told me not to swoon : — 
Why can't he come again without 
The Phoenix and the Sun ! — 
We cannot always have a flue 
On fire at Number One ! 

I am not old, I am not plain, 
Nor awkward in my gait — 
I am not crooked, like the bride 
That went from Number Eight : — 
I'm sure white satin made her 

look 
As brown as any bun — 
But even beauty has no chance, 
I think, at Number One ! 

At Number Six they say Miss 

Rose 
Has slain a score of hearts. 
And Cupid, for her sake, has been 
Quite prodigal of darts. 
The imp they show with bended 

bow, 
I wish he had a gun ! — 
But if he had, he'd never deign 
To shoot with Number One. 

It's very hard, and so it is 
To live in such a row ! 
And here's a ballad singer come 
To aggravate my woe; — 

take away your foolish song 
And tones enough to stun — 
There is " Nae luck about the 

house," 

1 know, at Number One ! 



144 



€^t aiiBtriirtinn. 



' draws honey forth that drives men mad." 

Lalla Rookh. 



The speakers were close under the bow-window of the inn, 
and as the sash was oj^en, Curiosity herself could not help over- 
hearing their conversation. So I laid down Mrs. Opie's " Illus- 
trations of Lying," — which I had found lying in the inn window, 
— and took a glance at the partners in the dialogue. 

One of them was much older than the other, and much taller ; 
he seemed to have grown hke quick-set. The other was thick- 
set. 

" I tell you, Thomas," said Quickset, " you are a flat. Before 
you've been a day in London, they'll have the teeth out of your 
very head. As for me, Fve been there twice, and know what's 
what. Take my advice ; never tell the truth on no account. 
Questions is only asked by way of pumping ; and you ought 
always to put 'em on a wrong scent." 

" But aunt is to send her man to meet me at the Old Bailey," 
said Thickset, "and to show rae to her house. Now if a 
strange man says to me, ' young man, are you Jacob Giles ? ' — 
an't I to tell him ?" 

" By no manner of means," answered Quickset ; " say you are 
quite another man. No one but a fiat would tell his name to a 
stranger about London. You see how I answered them last 



THE ABSTRACTION. 



145 



night about what was in the waggon. Brooms, says I, nothing 
else. A flat would have told them there was the honey-pots un- 
derneath ; but I've been to London before, and know a thing 
or two." 

" London must be a desperate place," said Thickset. 

"Mortal!" said Quickset, "fobs and pockets are nothing! 
Your watch is hardly safe if you carried it in your inside, and as 
for money " — 

" I'm almost sorry I left Berkshire," said Thickset. 




A TEA GARDEN, 



" Poo— poo," said Quickset, " don't be afeard. I'll look after 
ye ; cheat me, and they've only one more to cheat. Only mind 

T 



146 HOOD'S OWN. 

my advice. Don't say anything of your own head, and don't 
object to anything / say. If I say black 's white, don't contra- 
dict. Mark that. Say everything as I say." 

" I understand what you mean," said Thickset ; and with this 
lesson in his shock head, he began to busy himself about the 
waggon, while his comrade went to the stable for the hoi-ses. At 
last Old Ball emerged from the stable-door with the head of Old 
Dumpling resting on his crupper; when a yell rose from the 
rear of the waggon, that startled even Number 55, at the Bush 
Inn, at Staines, and brought the company running from the re- " 
motest box in its retired tea-garden. 

" In the name of everything," said the landlord, " what's the 
matter ?" 

" It's gone — all gone, by goles !" cried Thickset, with a be- 
wildered look at Quickset, as if doubtful whether he ought not to 
have said it was not gone. 

" You don't mean to say the honey-pots !" said Quickset, with 
some alarm, and letting go the bridle of Old Ball, who very 
quietly led Old Dumpling back again into the stable ; " you don't 
mean to say the honey-pots ?" 

" I donU mean to say the honey-pof&," said Thickset, literally 
following the instructions he had received. 

" What made you screech out then ? " said Quickset, appealing 
to Thickset. 

"What made me screech out then?" said Thickset, appeahng 
to Quickset, and determined to say as he said. 

" The fellow's drunk," said the landlord ; " the ale's got into 
his head." 

"Ale, — what ale has he had?" inquired Quickset, rather 
anxiously. 



THE ABSTRACTION. 14:7 

" Ale, — what ale have I had ?" echoed Thickset, looking sober 
with all his might. 

" He's not drunk," shouted Quickset ; " there's something the 
matter." 

"I'm not drunk; there is something the matter," bellowed 
Thickset, and with his forefinger he pointed to the waggon. 

" You don't mean to say the honey," said Quickset, his voice 
falling. 

" I donH mean to say the honey," said Thickset, his caution 
rising. 

The gesture of Thickset, however, had conveyed some vague 
notion of danger to his companion. With the agility of a cat 
he climbed on the waggon, and with the super-human activity 
of a demon, soon pitched down every bundle of besoms. There 
is a proverb that " new brooms sweep clean," and they certainly 
seemed to have swept every particle of honey clean out of the 
waggon. 

Quickset was thunderstruck; he stood gazing at the empty 
vehicle in silence ; while his hands wandered wildly through his 
hair, as if in search of the absent combs. 

When he found words at last, they were no part of the Litany. 
Words, however, did not suffice to vent his passion ; and he 
began to stamp and dance about, till the mud of the stable-yard 
flew round like anything you like. 

" A plague take him and his honey-pots, too," said the cham- 
bermaid, as she looked at a new pattern on her best gingham. 

" It's no matter," said Quickset, " I won't lose it. " The house 
must stand the damage. Mr. Bush, I shall look to you for the 
money." 

" He shall look to you for the money," da-capo'd Thickset. 



148 HOOD'S OWN. 

" You may look till doomsday," said the landlord. " It's all 
your own fault ; I thought nobody would steal brooms. If you 
had told me there was honey, I would have put the waggon 
under lock and key." 

" Why, there was honey," said Quickset and Thickset. 

" I don't know that," said Mr. Bush, " you said last night in 
the kitchen there was nothing but brooms." 

" I heard him," said John Ostler ; " I'll take my oath to his 
very words !" 

" And so will I," roared the chambermaid, glancing at her 
damaged gown. 

" What of that ?" said Quickset ; " I know I said there was 
nothing but brooms." 

" I know," said Thickset, " I'm positive, he said there was 
nothing but brooms." 

" He confesses it himself," said the landlady. 

" And his own man speaks agin him," said the chambermaid. 

" I saw the waggon come in, and it didn't seem to have any 
honey in it," said the head waiter. 

" May be the flies have eaten it," said the postilion. 

" I've seen two chaps the very moral of them two at the bar 
of the Old Bailey," said Boots. 

" It's a swindle, it is," said the landlady, " and Mr. Bush 
shan't pay a farthing." 

" They deserve tossing in a blanket," said the chambermaid. 

" Duck 'em in the horsepond," shouted John Ostler. 

" I think," whispered Thickset, " they are making themselves 
up for mischief !" 

There was no time to be lost. Quickset again lugged Old 
Ball and Old Dumpling from the stable, while his companion 



THE ABSTRACTION. 149 

tossed the brooms into the waggon. As soon as possible they 
drove out of the unlucky yard, and as they passed under the 
arch, I heard for the last time the voice of Thickset : 

" You've been to London before, and to be sure know best ; 
but somehow^ to my mind, the teUing the untruth don't seem to 
answer." 

The only reply was a thwack, like the report of a pistol, on 
the crupper of each of the horses. The poor animals broke 
directly into something like a canter ; and as the waggon turned 
a corner of the street, I shut down the sash, and resumed my 
" Illustrations of Lying." 



•^- 



150 



€^t irnmtiiug ffiurks- 

Amongst the sights that Mrs. Yet spite of drake, and ducks, 
Bond . and pond, 

Enjoy 'd yet grieved at more No little ducks had Mrs. Bond ! 
than others. 

Were little ducklings in a pond. The birds were both the best of 
Swimming about beside their mothers — 

mothers — The nests had eggs — the eggs 

Small things like living water had luck — 

lilies. The infant D.'s came forth like 
But yellow as the daffo-dillies. others — 

But there, alas! the matter 
" It's very hard," she used to stuck ! 

moan. They might as well have all died 
" That other people have their addle, 

ducklings As die when they began to pad- 
To grace their waters — mine die! 
alone 

Have never any pretty chuck- For when, as native instinct 
lings." taught her. 

For why! — each little yellow The mother set her brood afloat, 

navy They sank ere long right under 
Went down — all downy — to old water, 

Davy ! Like any over-loaded boat; 

They were web-footed too to see, 

She had a lake — a pond I mean — As ducks and spiders ought to be ! 
Its wave was rather thick than 

pearly — No peccant humour in a gander 
She had two ducks, their napes Brought havoc on her little 
were green — folks, — 

She had a drake, his tail was No poaching cook — a frying pan- 
curly, — der 



THE DROWNING DUCKS. 151 

To appetite, — destroyed their Whene'er they launeh'd — O sight 

yolks,— of wonder! 

Beneath her very eyes, Od' rot Like fires the water "got them 

'em ! under ! " 

They went like plummets to the 

bottom. No woman ever gave their lucks 

A better chance than Mrs. Bond 
The thing was strange — a contra- ,. , . 

^^^*^^^ , , At last quite out of heart and 

It seem'd of nature and her ducks 

^^ . . She gave her pond up, and de- 

For little ducks, beyond convic- sponded • 

*^^°' For death among the water-lilies, 

Shouldfloatwithoutthehelpof ^ried -Due ad me" to all her 

Great Johnson it bewildered him, 

To hear of ducks that could not 

g^yjjjj » But though resolved to breed no 

more. 
Poor Mrs. Bond ! what could she ^^^^ brooded often on this rid- 
do die- 
But change the breed— and she Alas! 'twas darker than before! 
tried divers ^^ ^^^^ about the summer's mid- 

Which dived as all seemed born d^®' 

^Q ^Jq . What Johnson, Mrs. Bond, or 

No little ones were e'er survi- °^"® "^"' 

yQj.g To clear the matter up the Sun 

Like those that copy gems, I'm * 

thinking. 

They all were given to die-sink- The thirsty Sirius, dog-like drank 
ing I So deep, his furious tongue to 

cool. 

In vain their downy coats were The shallow water sank and 
shorn ; sank, 

They flounder'd still!— Batch And lo, from out the wasted 
after batch went ! pool. 

The little fools seem'd only born Too hot to hold them any longer, 

And hatch'd for nothing but a There crawl'd some eels as big 
hatchment! as conger! 



152 HOOD'S OWN. 

I wish all folks would look a The sight at once explained the 
bit, case, 

In such a case, below the sur- Makiug the Dame look rather 
face ; silly, 

But when the eels were caught The tenants of that Eely Place 
and split Had found the way to Pick a 

By Mrs. Bond, just think of her dilly^ 

face. And so by under-water suction. 

In each inside at once to spy Had wrought the little ducks' ab- 
A duckling turn'd to giblet-pie! duction. 



153 



A TRUE STORY, 

FROM THE GERMAN OF JEAN PAUL NEMAND, 



CHAPTER I. 

" I AM perfectly at my wits' ends 1" 

As Madame Doppeldick said tMs, she thrust both her fat 
hands into the pockets of her scarlet cotton apron, at the same 
time giving her head a gentle shake, as if implying that it was 
a case in which heads and hands could be of no possible avail. 
She was standing in a little dormitory, exactly equidistant from 
two beds, between which her eyes and her thoughts had been 
alternating some ten minutes past. They were small beds, — 
pallets, — cots,' — cribs, troughs upon four legs, such as the old 
painters represent the manger in their pictures of the Nativity. 
Our German beds are not intended to carry double, and in such 
an obscure out-of-the-way village as Kleinewinkel, who would 
think of finding anything better in the way of a couch than a 
sort of box just too little for a bed, and just too large for a cof- 
fin ? It was between two such bedlings, then, that Madame 
Doppeldick was standing, when she broke out into the aforesaid 
exclamation — " I am perfectly at my wits' ends !" 

Now, the wits' ends of Madame Doppeldick scarcely extended 
farther fi*om her skull than the horns of a snail. They seldom 

7* 



154 HOOD'S OWN. 

protruded far beyond her nose, and that was a short one ; and 
moreover they were apt to recede and draw in from the fii-st ob- 
stacle they encountered, leaving then* proprietor to feel her own 
way, as if she had no wits' ends at all. Thus, having satisfied 
themselves that there were only two beds in the rooms, they left 
the poor lady in the lurch, and absolutely at a nonplus, as to how 
she was to provide for the accommodation of a third sleeper, who 
was expected to arrive the same evening. There was only one 
best bed-room in the house, and it happened to be the worst bed- 
room also ; for Gretchen, the maid-servant, went home nightly to 
sleep at her mother's. To be sure a shake-down might be spread 
in the parlour ; but to be sure the parlour was also a shop of all 
sorts ; and to be sure the young officer would object to such 
accommodations; and to be very sure, Mr. Doppeldick would 
object equally to the shake-down, and giving up the two beds 
overhead to his wife and the young officer. 

" God forgive me," said the perplexed Madame Doppeldick, as 
she went slowly down the stairs ; — "but I wish Captain Schenk 
had been killed at the battle of Leipzig, or had got a bed of glory 
anywhere else, before he came to be billeted on us ! " 




*I.L TAKK A BKD WITH YOU. 



THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 155 



CHAPTER 11. 



In extenuation of so unchristian-like an aspiration as the one 
which escaped from the Hps of Madame Doppeldick at the end of 
the last chapter, it must be remembered that she was a woman of 
great delicacy for her size. She was so corpulent, that she might 
safely have gone to court without a hoop, her arms were too big 
for legs ; and as for her legs, it passed for a miracle of industry, 
even amongst the laborious hard-working inhabitants of Kleine- 
winkel, that she knitted her own stockings. It must be confessed 
that she ate heartily, drank heartily, and slept heartily ; and all 
she ate, drank, and slept, seemed to do her good, for she never 
ceased growing, at least horizontally, till she di^ ample justice 
to the name which became her own by marriage. Still, as the 
bulk of her body increased, the native shrinking unobtrusive 
modesty of her mind remained the same ; or rather it became 
even more tremulously sensitive. In spite of her huge dimensions, 
she seemed to entertain the Utopian desire of being seen by no 
eyes save those of her husband ; of passing through hfe unnoticed 
and unknown ; in short, she was a globe-peony with the feelings of a 
violet. Judge then what a shock her blushing sensibilities re- 
ceived from the mere idea of the strange captain intruding on the 
shadiest haunts of domestic privacy ! Although by birth, educa- 
tion, and disposition, as loyal as the sunflower to the sun, in the 
first rash transports of her trepidation and vexation she wished 
anything but well to her liege sovereign the King of Prussia — 
wondering bitterly why his majesty could not contrive to have his 
reviews and sham-fights in Berlin itself; or at least in Posen, 
where there were spare beds to be had, and lodgings to let for 
single men. Then again, if the Quarter-master had but conde- 



156 HOOD'S OWN. 

scended to give a quarter's notice, why, Mr. Doppeldick might 
have run up an extra room, or they might have parted off a por- 
tion of their own chamber with lath and plaster — or they might 
have done a thousand things ; for instance, they might have sold 
their house and left the country, instead of being thus taken un- 
awares in their own sanctorum by a strange gentleman, as sud- 
denly as if he had tumbled through the roof. " It was too bad 
— it was really too bad — and she wondered what Mr. Doppeldick 
would say to it when he came home." 




*'l WISH I WAS WELL THROUGH IT." 



CHAPTER III. 

Mr. Doppeldick did come home — and he said nothing to it at 
all. He only pulled his tobacco-bag out of one coat-pocket, and 
his tobacco-pipe out of the other, and then he struck a light, and 
fell to smoking, as complacently as if there had been no Captain 
Schenk in the world. The truth was, he had none of that ner- 



THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 167 

vous nicety of feeling which his partner possessed so eminently, 
and accordingly, he took no more interest in her domestic dilemma 
than the walnut-wood chair that he sat upon. Moreover, when 
he once had in his mouth his favourite pipe, with a portrait of 
Kant on the bowl of it, he sucked through its tube a sort of Tran- 
scendental Philosophy which elevated him above all the ills of 
human life, to say nothing of such little domestic inconveniences 
as the present. If the house had been as big as the Hotel de 
Nassau, at Schlangenbad, with as many chambers and spare 
beds in it — or a barrack, with quarters for the captain and his 
company to boot — he could not have puffed on more contentedly. 
The very talk about beds and bedding appeared to lull him into 
a sort of sleep with his eyes open ; and even when the voice and 
words of his helpmate grew a little sharp and querulous in detail- 
ing all her doubts, and difficulties, and disagreeables, they could 
not raise even a ripple in the calm placid expanse of his forehead. 
How should they ? His equable German good humour might 
well be invulnerable to all outward attacks, which had so long 
withstood every internal one, — ay, in Temper's very citadel, the 
stomach. For instance, the better part of his' daily diet was of 
sours. He ate " sauer-kraut," and " sauer-braten," with sour sauce 
and " sauer-ampfer " by way of salad, and pickled plums by way 
of dessert, and " sauer-milch " with sourish brown bread — and 
then, to wash these down, he drank sourish " Essigberger " wine, 
and " sauer-wasser," of which the village of Kleinewinkel had its 
own peculiar brunnen. Still, I say, by all these sours, and many 
others not mentioned besides, his temper was never soured — nor 
could they turn one drop of the milk of human kindness that 
flowed in his bosom. Instead, therefore, of his round features 
being ever rumpled and crumpled, and furrowed up by the plough- 



158 



HOOD'S OWN. 



share of passion, you never saw anything on his face but the same 
everlasting sub-smile of phlegmatic philanthrophy. In spite of 
the stream of complaint that kept pouring into his ear, he forgave 
Captain Schenk from the bottom of his soul for being billeted on 
him ; and entertained no more spleen towards the King of Prussia 
and the Quarter-master, than he did towards the gnat that bit 
him last year. At length, his pipe wanting replenishing, he 
dropped a few comfortable words to his wife, meanwhile he re- 
filled the bowl, and brought the engine again into play : — 

" As for undressing, Malchen, — before the strange man — puff — 
why can't we go to bed, — puff — before he does, — puff — puff — 
and so put an end to the matter — puff — puff — puff' ! " 

" As I live upon damsons and buUases ! " (for it was the plum 
season,) exclaimed Madame Doppeldick, clapping her fat hands 
with delight, " I never thought of that ! Gretchen, my lass, get 
the supper ready immediately, for your good master is mortal 
hungry, and so am I ! — and then, my own Dietrich dear, we'll 
bundle off to bed as fast as we can ! " 




THE LAST IN BED TO PUT OUT THK LIGHT. 



THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 159 

CHAPTER IV. 

The best of plots aay come to the woi-st of ends. It was no 
fault, however of Gretchen's ; for being in a hurry of her own to 
meet Ludwig Liedeback, she clapped the supper upon the table 
in no time at all. The transcendental pipe, with the head of Kant 
upon it, instantly found itself deposited in a by corner ; for Mr. 
Doppeldick, like his better half, was a person of substance, keep- 
ing a good running account with Messer and Gabel. Besides, 
amongst other dehcacies, the board actually displayed those rarest 
of all inland rarities, oysters, — a bag of which the warm-hearted 
Adam Kloot had sent, by way of a token of remembrance, to his 
old friend Dietrich ; forgetting utterly that it was full a hundred 
leagues from the nearest high water-mark of the sea to the village 
of Kleinewinkel. Of course they came like other travellers, with 
their mouths wide agape, to see the wonders of the place, — but, 
then, so much the easier they were to open ; and as the worthy 
couple did not contemplate any such superfluous nicety as shaving 
them before they swallowed them, there was a fair chance that 
the dehcious morsels would all be devoured before the inauspicious 
arrival of Captain Schenk. Some such speculation seemed to 
ghmmer in the eyes of both Mr. and Mrs. Doppeldick— -when, lo ! 
just as the sixth dead oyster had been body-snatched out of its 
shell, and was being flavoured up with lemon and vinegar, the 
door opened, and in walked a blue cap with a red band, a pair of 
mustachios, and a grey cloak without any arms in its sleeves. 
Had Madame Doppeldick held anything but an oyster in her 
mouth at that moment it would infallibly have choked her, the 
flutter of her heart in her throat was so violent. 
" Holy Virgin ! — Captain Schenk ! " 



160 HOOD'S OWN. 

" At your service, Madame," answered a voice through the 
mustachios. 

" You are welcome, Captain ! " said the worthy master of the 
house, at the same time rising, and placing a chair for his guest 
at that side of the table which was farthest from the oysters. 
The officer, without any ceremony, threw himself into the seat, 
and then, resting his elbows upon the table, and his cheeks be- 
tween his palms, he fixed his dark eyes on the blushing face of 
Madame Doppeldick in a long and steady stare. It is true that 
he was only mentally reviewing the review^ ; or, possibly, calcu- 
lating the chances he had made in favour of an application he 
had lately forwarded to Berlin, to be exchanged into the Royal 
Guards ; but the circumstance sufficed to set every nerve of Ma- 
dame Doppeldick a vibrating, and in two minutes from his am- 
val, she had made up her mind that he was a very bold, forward, 
and presuming young man. 

It is astonishing, when we have once conceived a prejudice, 
how rapidly it grows, and how plentifully it finds nutriment ! 
Like the sea polypus, it extends its thousand feelers on every side, 
for anything they can lay hold of, and the smallest particle afloat 
in the ocean of conjecture cannot escape from the tenacity of their 
grasp. So it was with Madame Doppeldick. From mistrusting 
the captain's eyes, she came to suspect his nose, his mustachios, 
his mouth, his chin, and even the shght furrow of a sabre cut that 
scarred his forehead just over the left eyebrow. She felt morally 
sure that he had received it in no battle-field, but in some scan- 
dalous duel. Luckily she had never seen Mozart's celebrated 
opera, or she would inevitably have set down Captain Schenk as 
its hbertine masquerading hero, Don Giovanni himself! 

" You will be sharp-set for supper, Captain," said the hospita- 



THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 161 

ble host, pushing towards his guest a dish of lean home-made 
bacon ; but the Captain took no more notice of the invitation 
than if he had been stunned stone-deaf by the artillery at the 
sham-fight in the morning. Possibly he did not like bacon, or, 
at any rate, such bacon as was set before him ; for to put the 
naked Truth on her bare oath, the Kleinewinkel • pigs always 
looked as if they got their living, like cockroaches, by creeping 
through cracks. However, he never changed his posture, but 
kept his dark intolerable eye still fixed on his hostess's full and 
flushed face. He might just as well have stared, if he must stare 
— at the shelves-full of old family china, (some of it elaborately 
mended and riveted) in the corner cupboard, the door of which 
she had left open on purpose ; but he had, apparently, no such 
considerate respect for female modesty. 

" Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand be near us!" said 
the disquieted Madame Doppeldick to herself. " It is hard 
enough for people of our years and bulk to be obliged to lie 
double ; — but to have a strange, wild, rakish, staring young fellow 
in the same chamber — I do wish that Dietrich would make more 
haste with his supper, that we may get into bed first 1" 



CHAPTER V. 

Honest Dietrich was in no such hurry. A rational, moral, 
pious man, with a due grateful sense of the sapidity of certain 
gifts of the Creator, ought not to swallow them with the post- 
haste indifference of a sow swilling her wash ; and as Dietrich 
Doppeldick did not taste oysters once in ten years, it was a sort 
of rehgious obligation, as well as a positive secular temptation, 
that the relish of each particular fish should be prolonged as fai' 



162 



HOOD'S OWN. 



as possible on the palate by an orderly, decorous, and deliberate 
deglutition. Accordingly, instead of bolting the oysters as if he 
had been swallowing them for a wager, he sate soberly, with his 
eyes fixed on the two plumpest, as if only waiting the " good 
night " of his guest to do ample and christian-like justice to the 
edible forget-me-nots of his good friend Adam Kloot. In vain 
his wife looked hard at him, and trod on his toes as long as she 
could reach them, besides being seized with a short hectic cough 

that was anything but constitutional 

" Lord help me ! " said Mrs. Doppeldick in her soul, too flut- 
tered to attend to the correctness of her metaphors — " It's as easy 
to catch the eye of a post ! — He minds me no more than if I 
trod on the toes of a stock-fish ! I might as well cough into the 
ears of a stone wall." 




KI88INO OOES BY FAVOUR. 



Y 



THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 163 

In fact, honest Dietrich had totally forgotten the domestic 
dilemma. 

" He will never take his eyes off," thought Madame Doppel- 
dick, stealing a glance across the table ; " I was never so stared 
at, never, since I was a girl and wore pigtails ! I expect every 
moment he will jump up and embrace me." Whereas nothing 
could be further from the Captain's thought. The second batta- 
lion had joined that very morning, and accordingly he had kiss- 
ed, or been kissed by, all its eight-and-twenty officers, tall or 
short, fat or lean, fair or swarthy,— which was quite kissing 
enough for a reasonable day's ration. The truth is, he was star- 
ing at himself. He had just, mentally, put on a new uniform, 
and was looking with the back of his eyes at his own brilliant 
figure, as a Captain in the Royal Guards. It was, however, a 
stare, outwardly, at Madame Doppeldick, who took everything 
to herself, frogs, lace, bulHon, buttons, cuflfe, collars, epaulettes, 
and the Deuce knows what besides. 

"I would to heaven!" she wished, "he had never thought 
of going into the army, — or at least that the Quartermaster had 
never taken it into his stupid head to quarter him on us. Young 
gay Captains are very well to flirt with, or to waltz with, but at 
my years and bulk waltzing is quite out of the question 1" 



CHAPTER VI. 

At last Captain Schenk changed his posture, and averted his 
familiar eyes from the face of Madame Doppeldick ; but it was 
only to give her a fresh alarm with his free-and-easy mouth. 
First of all he clenched his fists— then he raised his arms at full 
stretch above his head, as if he wanted to be crucified, and then 
turning his face upwards towards the ceiling, with his eyes shut, 



164 HOOD'S OWN. 

and his jaws open — he yawned such a yawn as panther never 
yawned after prowhng all day, without prey, in a ten-foot cage — 

" Auw-yauw-au-ya-augh-auwayawauwghf ! " 

"By all the Saints," thought the terrified Madame Doppel- 
dick, " he will be for packing off to bed at once ! " — and in the 
vain hope of inducing him to sup beforehand, she seized, yes, she 
actually seized the devoted dish of oysters, and made them re- 
lieve guard, with the home-made bacon, just under the Captain's 
nose. It was now honest Dietrich's turn to try to catch the eyes 
of posts, and tread on the toes of stock-fish ; however, for this 
time the natives were safe. 

" By your leave, Madame," said the abominable voice through 
the mustachios, " I will take nothing except a candle. What 
with the heavy rain at first, and then the hoi-se artillery plough- 
ing up our marching ground, I am really dog-tired with my day's 
work. If you will do me the favour, therefore, to show me to 
my chamber " 

" Not for the whole world ! " exclaimed the horrified Madame 
Doppeldick — "not for the whole world, I mean, till you have 
hob-and-nobbed with us — at least with the good man" — and, like 
a warm-hearted hostess, jealous of the honour of her hospitality, 
she snatched up the spare-candle, and hurried off to the barrel. 
If she could but set them down to drinking, she calculated, let 
who would be the second, she would herself be the first in bed, 
if she jumped into it with all her clothes on. It was a likely 
scheme enough, — but alas ! it fell through, like the rest ! — Before 
she had drawn half a flask of Essigberger, or Holzapfelheimer, 
for I forget which — she was alarmed by the double screech of 
two chairs pushed suddenly back on the uncarpeted floor. Then 
came a trampling of light and heavy feet — and although she 



THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 



165 



dropped the bottle — and forgot to turn the spigot — and carried 
the candle without the candlestick — and left her left slipper be- 
hind her, — still, in spite of all the haste she could make, she 
only reached the stair-foot just in time to see two Prussian-blue 
coat-tails, turned up with red, whisking in at the bedroom door ! 



CHAPTER VII. 

" Oh the cruel, the kilHng ill-luck that pursues us ! " exclaimed 
the forlorn Madame Doppeldick, as her husband returned, with 
his mouth watering, to the Httle parlour, where, by some sort of 
attraction, he was drawn into the Captain's vacant chair, instead 
of his own. In a few seconds the plumpest of Adam Kloot's 
tender souvenirs, of about the size and shape of a penny bun, 
was sliding over his tongue. Then another went— -and another 
— and another. They were a little gone or so, and no wonder ; 
for they had travelled up the Rhine and the Moselle, in a dry 
"schifF," not a "dampschiff," towed by real horse-powers, in- 
stead of steam-powers, against the stream. To tell the naked 
truth, there were only four words in the w^orld that a respectably 
fresh Cod's head could have said to them, namely : — 




NONE or YOUR SAUCE, 



166 HOOD'S OWN. 

No matter : down they went glibly, glibly. The lemon-juice 
did something for them, and the vinegar still more, by making 
them seem sharp instead of flat. Honest Dietrich enjoyed them 
as mightily as Adam Kloot could have wished ; and was in no 
humour, you may be sure, for spinning prolix answers or long- 
winded speeches. 

" They are good — very ! — excellent ! Malchen ! — Just eat a 
couple." 

But the mind of the forlorn Malchen was occupied with any- 
thing but oysters : it was fixed upon things above, or at least 
overhead. " I do not think I can sit up all night," she mur- 
mured, concluding with such a gape that the tears squeezed 
out plentifully between her fat little eyelids. 

" I've found only one bad one — and that was full of black 
mud — schloo — oo — oo — ooop !" — slirropped honest Dietrich. 
N. B. — There is no established formula of minims and crotchets 
on the gamut to represent the swallowing of an oyster : so the 
afoi-esaid syllables of " schloo — oo — oo — ooop," must stand in 
their stead. 

" As for sleeping in my clothes," continued Madame Doppel- 
dick, " the weather is so very warm, — and the little window 
won't open — and with two in a bed — " 

" The English do it, Malchen, — schloo — oo — ooop ! " 

" But the English beds have curtains," said Madame Doppel- 
dick, "thick stuflp or canvas curtains, Dietrich, — all round, and 
over the top — just like a general's tent." 

" We can go — schloo — ooop — to bed in the dark, Malchen." 

" No — no," objected Madame Doppeldick, with a grave shake 
of her head. "We'll have no blindman's-buff work, Dietrich, — 
and may be blundering into wrong beds." 



THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 167 

" Schloo — 00 — 00 — 00 — ooop." 

" And if ever I saw a wild, rakish, immoral, irreligious-look- 
ing young man, Dietrich, the Captain is one !" 

" Schloo — 00 — 00 — ooop." 

" Did you observe, Dietrich, how shamefully he stared at me ?" 

" Schloo — ooop." 

" And the cut on his forehead, Dietrich, I'll be bound he got 
it for no good ! " 

" Schloo — 00 — 00 — ooop." 

" Confound Adam Kloot and his oysters to boot !" exclaimed 
the offended Madame Doppeldick, irritated beyond all patience 
at the bovine apathy of her connubial partner, " I wish, I do, 
that the nets had bm*st in catching them ! " 

" Why, what can one do, Malchen ?" asked honest Dietrich, 
looking up for the first time from the engrossing dish, whence the 
one-a-penny oysters had all vanished, leaving only the two-a- 
penny ones behind. 

" Saint Ursula only knows ! " sighed Madame Doppeldick, her 
voice relapsing into its former tone of melancholy. " I only 
know that I will never undress in the room ! " 

" Then you must undress out of it, Malchen. Schloo — oop. 
Schloo — 00 — 00 — 00 — ooop." 

" I believe that must be the way after all," said Ma'dame Dop- 
peldick, on whose mind her husband's sentence of transcenden- 
tal philosophy had cast a new hght. "To be sure there is a 
httle landing-place at the stair-head— and our bed is exactly op- 
posite the door — and if one scuttled briskly across the room, and 
jumped in — But are you sure, Dietrich, that you explained every 
thing correctly to the Captain ? Did you tell him that his was 
the one next the window — with the patchwork coverlet ?" 



168 



HOOD'S OWN. 



" Not a word of it !" answered honest Dietrich, who, hke all 
other Prussians, had served his two years as a soldier, and was 
therefore moderately interested in military manoeuvres. " Not a 
word of it — we talked all about the review. But I did what 
was far better, my own Malchen, for I saw him get into the bed 
with the patchwork coverlet, with my own eyes, and then took 
away his candle — Schloo — oo — oop ! " ' 




*' It was done like my own dear, kind, Dietrich," exclaimed 
the delighted Madame Doppeldick, and in the sudden revulsion 
of her feelings, she actually pulled up his huge round bullet-head 
from the dish, and kissed him between the nose and chin. 

The Domestic Dilemma was disarmed of its horns, Madame 



THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 169 

Doppeldick saw her way before lier, as clear and open as the 
Rhine three months after the ice has broken up. From that 
morbent, as long as the dish contained two oysters, the air of 
" Schloo — 00 — 00 — 00 — ooop " was sung, as " arranged for a 
duet." 

:^r^ . 

CHAPTER VIII. 

" All is quiet, thank Heaven ! the Captain is as fast as a 
church," thought Madame Doppeldick, as she stood in noctur- 
nal dishabille, on the little landing-place at the stair-head. " Now 
then, my own Dietrich," she whispered, "are you ready to run?" 
For like the best of wives, as she was, she did not much care to 
go any^Vhere without her husband. 

But the deliberate Dietrich was not prepared to escort her. 
He had chosen to undress as usual, with his transcendental pipe 
in his mouth ; indeed it was always the last thing that he took 
oflF before getting into bed, so that till all his philosophy was 
burned to ashes, his mind would not consent to any active cor- 
poreal exertion, especially to any locomotion so rapid as a race. 
At last he stood balancing, made up for the start ; his eyes star- 
ing, his teeth clenched, his fists doubled, and his arms swinging, 
as if he were about to be admitted a burgess of Andernach — 
that is to say, by Jeaping backwards over a winno wing-fan, with 
a well-poised pail of water in his arms, in order to show if he 
accomplished it neatly. 

" The night-light may be left burning where it is, Dietrich." 

" Now then, Malchen !" 

" Now then, Dietrich, — and run gently — on yodr toes !" 

No sooner said than done. The modest Malchen with the 

8 



170 HOOD'S OWN. 

speed of a young wild elephant, made a rush across the room, 
and, with something of a jump and something more of a scramble, 
plunged headlong into the bed. The phlegmatic Dietrich was a 
thought later, from having included the whole length of the 
landing-place in his run, to help him in his leap, so that just as 
his bulk came, squash ! upon the coverlet, his predecessor was 
tumbhng her body, skow-wow, bow-wow, any-how, over the side 
of the bedstead. 

" Santa Maria ! " sobbed Madame Doppeldick, as she settled 
into hysterics upon the floor. 

"Potz-tausend!" said Mr. Doppeldick, as he crawled backwards 
out of the bed like a crab. 




WHY DID YOU SUP ON PORK.-' 



" Ten thousand devils !" bellowed Captain Schenk — a sup- 
pressed exclamation that the first shock had driven from his 
mouth into his throat, from his throat into his lungs, and from 
thence into his stomach ; but which the second shock had now 
driven out again in full forc^. 



d 



THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 171 

********* 
"Why, I thought, Mister Jean Paul Nemand (says the 
reader ), that we left the Captain safe and sound, in his own bed, 
next the window, with the patch-work coverlet ?" 

" And so we did, Mister Carl Wilhelm Jemand ( says the 
author), but it was so short, that in five minutes he caught the 
cramp. Wherefore, as there was a second spare bed in the room, 
and as honest Dietrich had said nothing of other lodgers, and as 
of all blessings we ought to choose the biggest, the Captain de- 
termined to give it a trial — and between you and me he liked 
the bed well enough, till he felt a sort of smashing pain all over 
his body, his eyes squeezing out of his face, his nose squeezing 
into it, and his precious front teeth, at a gulp, going uninvited 
down his gullet I" 



172 



I HUB nui ruuiint. 

Thb Moon — who does not love the silver moon, 
In all her fantasies and all her phases ? 

Whether full-orb'd in the nocturnal noon, 
Shining in all the dewdrops on the daisies, 
To light the tripping Fairies in their mazes. 

Whilst stars are winking at the pranks of Puck ; 
Or huge and red, as on brown sheaves she gazes; 

Or new and thin, when coin is turned for luck ; — 

Who will not say that Dian is a Duck ? 

But, oh ! how tender, beautiful, and sweet, 

When in her silent round, serene, and clear, 
By assignation loving fancies meet, 

To recompense the pangs of absence drear ! 

So Ellen, dreaming of Lorenzo, dear, 
But distant from the city mapp'd by Mogg, 

Still saw his image in that silver sphere, 
Plain as the Man Wjith lantern, bush, and dog, 
That used to set our ancestors a-gog. 

And so she told him in a pretty letter. 
That came to hand exactly as St. Meg's 

Was striking ten — eleven had been better ; 
For then he might have eaten six more eggs, 
And both of the bedevill'd turkey-legs, 

With relishes from East, West, North, and South, 
Draining, beside, the teapot to the dregs. 

Whereas a man, whose heart is in his mouth, 

Is rather spoilt for hunger and for drouth. 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 173 

And so the kidneys, broiling hot, were wasted ; 

The brawn— it never enter'd in his thought ; 
The grated Parmesan remained untasted ; 

The potted shrimps were left as they were bought, 

The capelings stood as merely good for nought, 
The German sausage did not tempt him better. 

Whilst Juno, licking her poor lips, was taught 
There's neither bone nor skin about a letter. 
Gristle, nor scalp, that one can give a setter. 

Heav'n bless the man who first devised a mail ! 

Heav'n bless that public pile which stands concealing 
The Goldsmiths' front with such a solid veil ! 

Heav'n bless the Master, and Sir Francis Freeling, 

The drags, the nags, the leading or the wheeling. 
The whips, the guards, the horns, the coats of scarlet, 

The boxes, bags, those evening bells a-pealing ! 
Heav'n bless, in short, each posting thing, and varlet. 
That helps a Werter to a sigh from Charlotte. 

So felt Lorenzo as he oped the sheet. 

Where, first, the darling signature he kiss'd. 
And then, recurring to its contents sweet 

With thirsty eyes, a phrase I must enlist, 

He gulfd the words to hasten to their gist ; 
In mortal ecstacy his soul was bound — 

When, lo ! with features all at once a-twist, 
He gave a whistle, wild enough in soub^ 
To summon Faustus's Infernal Hound ! 

Alas ! what little miff's and tiff's in love, 

A snubbish w^ord, or pouting look mistaken. 
Will loosen screws with sweethearts hand and glove ; 

Oh ! love, rock firm when chimney-pots were shaken, 

A pettish breath will into huff's awaken, 
To spit like hump-back'd cats, and snarling Towzers ! 

Till hearts are wreck'd and founder'd, and forsaken. 
As ships go to Old Davy, Lord knows how, sirs. 
While heav'n is blue enough for Dutchmen's trowsers ! 



174 HOOD'S OWN. 

" The moon's at full, love, and I think of you" — 

Who would have thought that such a kind P.S. 
Could make a man turn white, then red, then blue, 

Then black, and knit his eyebrows and compress 

His teeth, as if about to effervesce 
Like certain people when they lose at whist ! 

So look'd the chafed Lorenzo, ne'ertheless. 
And, in a trice, the paper he had kiss'd 
Was crumpled like a snowball in his fist ! 

Ah! had he been less versed in scientifics, 

More ignorant, in short, of what is what : , 

He ne'er had flared up in such calorifics ; 

But he would seek societies, and trot 

To Clubs — Mechanics' Institutes — and got 
With Birkbeck — Bartley — Combe — George Robins — Rennie, 

And other lecturing men. And had he not 
That work, of weekly parts, which sells so many, 
The Copper-bottomed Magazine — or " Penny ?" 

But, of all learned pools whereon, or in. 

Men dive like dabchicks, or like swallows skim. 
Some hardly damp'd, some wetted to the skin. 

Some drown'd like pigs when they attempt to swim. 

Astronomy was most Lorenzo's whim, 
('Twas studied by a Prince among the Burmans) ; 

He loved those heavenly bodies which, the Hymn 
Of Addison declares, preach solemn sermons, 
While waltzing on their pivots like young Germans. 

Night after night, with telescope in hand, 
Supposing that the night was ftiir and clear. 

Aloft, on the housetop, he took his stand. 

Till he obtained to know each twinkling sphere 
Better, I doubt, than Milton's " Starry Vere ;" 

Thus, reading thro' poor Ellen's fond epistle. 
He soon espied the flaw — the lapse so sheer. 

That made him raise his hair in such a bristle. 

And like the Boatswain of the Storm-Ship whistle. 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 



175 



" The moon's at full, love, and I think of thee" — 
" Indeed ! I'm very much her humble debtor. 

But not the moon-calf she would have me be, 
Zounds ! does she fancy that I know no better ?" 
Herewith, at either corner of the letter 

He gave a most ferocious, rending, pull ; — 
" O woman ! woman ! that no vows can fetter, 

A moon to stay for three weeks at the full ! 

By Jove ; a very pretty cock-and-bull ! 

" The moon at full ! 'twas very finely reckon'd ! 
Why so she wrote me word upon the first — 
The twelfth, and now upon the twenty-second — 




HO ME's DOUGLAS. 



Full ! — yes — it must be full enough to burst! 
But let her go — of all vile jilts the worst" — 



176 HOOD'S OWN. 

Here with his thumbs he gave contemptuous snaps, 

Anon he blubber'd like the child that's nurs'd, 
And then he hit the table frightful raps, 
And stamp'd till he had broken both his straps. 

" The moon's at full — and I am in her thought — 

No doubt : I do believe it in my soul !" 
Here he threw up his head, and gave a snort 

Like a young horse first harness'd to a polo : 

" The moon is full — aye, so is this d — d bowl !" 
And, grinning like the sourest of curmudgeons, 

Globe — water — fishes — he dash'd down the whole. 
Strewing the carpet with the gasping gudgeons ; 
Men do the strangest things in such love-dudgeons. 

"I fill her thoughts — her memory's vice-gerent? 

No, no, — some paltry puppy — three weeks old — 
And round as Norval's shield" — thus incoherent 

His fancies grew as he went on to scold ; 

So stormy waves are into breakers roll'd, 
Work'd up at last to mere chaotic wroth — 

This — that — heads — tails — ^thoughts jumbled uncontroll'd, 
As onions, turnips, meat, in boiling broth, 
By turns bob up, and splutter In the froth. 

" Fool that I was to let a baby face — 

A full one — like a hunter's — round and red — 
Ass that I am, to give her more a place 

Within this heart" — and here he struck his head. 

"'Sdeath, are the Almanack-compilers dead? 
But no — 'tis all an artifice — a trick, 

Some newer face — some dandy under-bred — 
Well — be it so — of all the sex I'm sick ! " 
Here Juno wonder'd why she got a kick. 

"*The moon is full' — where's her infernal scrawl? 

'And you are in my thought: that silver ray 
Will ever your dear image thus recall ' — 

My image? Mine! She'd barter it away 



4- 

LOVE AND LUNACY. ITT 

For Pretty Poll's on an Italian's tray ! 
Three weeks, full weeks,— it is too plain— too bad — 

Too gross and palpable! Oh cursed day! 
My senses have not crazed — but if they had — 
Such moons would worry a Mad Doctor mad ! 

"Oh Nature! wherefore did you frame a lip 

So fair for falsehood ? Wherefore have you drest 

Deceit so angel-like 1 " With sudden rip 
He tore six new buff buttons from his vest, 
And groped with hand impetuous at his breast, 

As if some flea from Juno's fleecy curls 
Had skipp'd to batten on a human chest. 

But no— the hand comes forth, and down it hurls 

A lady's miniature beset with pearls. 

Yet long upon the floor it did not tarry, 

Before another outrage could be plann'd : 
Poor Juno, who had learn'd to fetch and carry, 

Pick'd up and brought it to her master's hand, 

Who seized it, and the mimic feature scann'd; 
Yet not with the old loving ardent drouth. 

He only saw in that fair face, so bland. 
Look how he would at it, east, west, north, south, 
A moon, a full one, with eyes, nose, and mouth. 

" I'll go to her," — herewith his hat he touch'd, 

And gave his arm a most heroic brandish ; 
"But no — I'll write" — and here a spoon he clutch'd, 

And ramm'd it with such fury in the standish, 

A sable flood, like Niger the outlandish. 
Came rushing forth— Oh Antics and Buffoons! 

Ye never danced a caper so ran-dan-dish ; 
He jump'd—thmnp'd— tore— swore, more than ten dragoons. 
At all nights, noons, moons, spoons, and pantaloons ! 

But soon ashamed, or weary, of such dancing. 

Without a CoUinet's or Weippert's band, 
His rampant arms and legs left off* their prancing, 

And down he sat a^rain, with pen in hand, 
8* 



178 HOOD'S OWN. 

Not fiddle-headed, or King's-pattern grand, 
But one of Bramah's patent Caligraphics ; 

And many a sheet it spoil'd before he plann'd 
A likely letter. Used to pure seraphics, 
Philippics sounded strangely after Sapphics. 

Long while he rock'd like Yankee in his chair, 

Staring as he would stare the wainscot through, 
And then he thrust his fingers in his hair, 

And set his crest up like a cockatoo ; 

And trampled with his hoofs, a mere Yahoo : 
At last, with many a tragic frown and start. 

He penn'd a billet, very far from doux, 
'Twas sour, severe — but think of a man's smart 
Writing with lunar caustic on his heart ! 

The letter done and closed, he lit his taper, 
And sealing, as it were, his other mocks, 

He stamp'd a grave device upon the paper. 
No Cupid toying with his Psyche's locks — 
But some stern head of the old Stoic stocks — 

Then, fiercely striding through the staring streets, 
He dropt the bitter missive in a box. 

Beneath the cakes, and tarts, and sugar'd treats. 

In Mrs. Smelling's window-full of sweets. 

Soon sped the letter — thanks to modern plans, 
Our English mails run little in the style 

Of those great German wild-beast caravans, 
jEiZ-wagens — tho' they do not " go like iZe," — 
But take a good twelve minutes to the mile — 

On Monday morning, just at ten o'clock. 

As Ellen huram'd " The Young May Moon " the while, 

Her ear was startled by that double knock 

Which thrills the nerves like an electric shock ! 

Her right hand instantly forgot its cunning. 
And down into the street it dropt, or flung, 

Right on the hat and wig of Mr. Gunning, 

The jug that o'er her ten-week-stocks had hung; 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 179 

Then down the stairs by twos and threes, she sprung, 
And through the passage like a burglar darted. 

Alas ! how sanguine are the fond and young — 
She little thought, when with the coin she parted, 
She paid a sixpence to be broken-hearted ! 

Too dear at any price — had she but paid 

Nothing and taken discount, it was dear ; 
Yet, worthless as it was, the sweet-lipped maid 

Oft kissed the letter in her brief career 

Between the lower and the upper sphere, 
Where, seated in a study bistre-brown, 

She tried to pierce a mystery as clear 
As that I saw once puzzling a young clown — 
" Reading Made Easy," but turned upside down. 

Yet Ellen, like most misses in the land. 
Had sipped sky blue, through certain of her teens, 

At one of those establishments which stand 

In highways, byeways, squares, and village greens : 
'Twas called " The Grove," — a name that always means 

Two poplars stand like sentries at the gate — 
Each window had its close Venetian screens 

And Holland blind, to keep in a cool state 

The twenty-four Young Ladies of Miss Bate. 

But when the screens were left unclosed by chance, 

The blinds not down, as if Miss B. were dead, 
Each upper window to a passing glance 

Revealed a little dimity white bed ; 

Each lower one a cropp'd or curly head ; 
And thrice a week, for soul's and health's economies. 

Along the road the twenty-four were lead, 
Like coupled hounds, whipped in by two she-dominies 
With faces rather graver than Melpomene's. 

And thus their studies they pursued : — On Sunday, 

Beef, collects, batter, texts from Dr. Price ; 
Mutton, French, pancakes, grammar — of a Monday ; 

Tuesday— hard dumplings, globes, Chapone's Advice ; 



180 



HOOD'S OWN. 



Wednesday — fancy-work, rice-milk (no spice) ; 
Thursday — pork, dancing, currant-bolsters, reading ; 

Friday — beef, Mr. Butler, and plain rice ; 
Saturday — scraps, short lessons and short feeding, 
Stocks, back-boards, hash, steel-collars, and good breeding. 

From this repertory of female learning, 
Came Ellen once a quarter, always fatter ! 

To gratify the eyes of parents yearning. 
'Twas evident in bolsters, beef, and batter, 
Hard dumplings, and rice-milk, she did not smatter, 




PRACTICE DRIVES ME MAD. 



But heartily, as Jenkins says, " demollidge ;" 

But as for any learning, not to flatter. 
As often happens when girls leave their college, 
She had done nothing but grow out of knowledge. 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 181 

At Long Division suras she had no cliance, 

And History was quite as bad a balk ; 
Her French, it was too small for Petty France, 

And Priscian suffered in her English talk : 

Her drawing might be done with cheese or chalk ; 
As for the globes — the use of the terrestrial 

She knew when she went out to take a walk, 
Or take a ride ; but, touching the celestial, 
Her knowledge hardly soared above the bestial. 

Nothing she learned of Juno, Pallas, Mars ; 

Georgiura, for what she knew, might stand for Burgo, 
Sidus, for Master : then, for northern stars, 

The Bear she fancied did in sable fur go, 

The Bull was Farmer Giles's bull, and, ergo. 
The Ram the same that butted at her brother ; 

As for the Twins, she only guessed that Virgo, 
From coming after them, must be their mother ; 
The Scales weighed soap, tea, figs, like any other. 

As ignorant as donkeys in Gallicia, 

She thought that Saturn, with his Belt, was but 
A private, may be, in the Kent Militia ; 

That Charles's Wain would stick in a deep rut, 

That Venus was a real West-End slut — 
Oh, Gods and Goddesses of Greek Theogony ! 

That Berenice's Hair would curl and cut, 
That Cassiopeia's Chair was good Mahogany, 
Nicely French-polished, — such was her cosmogony ! 

Judge, then, how puzzled by the scientifics 

Lorenzo's letter came now to dispense ; 
A lizard, crawling over hieroglyyhics, 

Knows quite as much of their Egytian sense ; 

A sort of London fog, opaque and dense, 
Hung over verbs, nouns, genitives, and datives. 

In vain she pored and pored, with eyes intense — 
As well is known to oyster-operatives. 
Mere looking at the shells won't open natives. 



182 HOOD'S OWN. 

Yet mixed with the hard words, so called, she found 

Some easy ones that gave her heart the staggers ; 
Words giving tongue against her, like a hound 

At picking out a fault — words speaking daggers. 

The very letters seemed, in hostile swaggers. 
To lash their tails, but not as horses do. 

Nor like the tails of spaniels, gentle waggers, 
But like a lion's, ere he tears in two 

A black, to see if he is black all through. 

With open mouth, and eyeballs at full stretch. 
She gazed upon the paper sad and sorry. 

No sound — no stir — quite petrified, poor wretch ! 
As when Apollo, in old allegory, 
Down-stooping like a falcon, made his quarry 

Of Niobe, just turned to Purbeck stone ; 
In fact, since Cupid grew into a worry, 

Judge if a suing lover, let alone 

A lawyer, ever wrote in such a tone : 

" Ellen, I will no longer call you mine, 

That time is past, and ne'er can come again ; 

However other lights undimmed may shine, 
And undiminishing, one truth is plain. 
Which I, alas ! have learned, — that love can wane. 

The dream is pass'd away, the veil is rent. 
Your heart was not intended for my reign ; 

A sphere so full, I feel, was never meant 

With one poor man in it to be content. 

" It must, no doubt, be pleasant beyond measure 
To wander underneath the whispering bough 

With Dian, a perpetual round of pleasure. 
Nay, fear not, — I absolve of every vow, — 
Use, — use your own celestial pleasure now. 

Your apogee and perigee arrange. 

Herschel might aptly stare and wonder how, 

To me that constant disk has nothing strange — 

A counterfeit is sometimes hard to change. 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 183 

" Oh Ellen ! I once little thought to write 

Such words unto you, with so hard a pen , 
Yet outraged love will change its nature quite, 

And turn like tiger hunted to its den — 

How Falsehood trips in her deceits on men ! 
And stands abash'd, discover'd and forlorn ! 

Had it been only cusp'd — but gibbous — then 
It had gone down — but Faith drew back in scorn, 
And would not swallow it — without a horn ! 

" I am in occultation, — that is plain : 

My culmination's past, — that's quite as clear, 
But think not I will suffer your disdain 

To hang a lunar rainbow on a tear. 

Whate'er my pangs, they shall be buried here ; 
No murmur, — not a sigh, — shall thence exhale : 

Smile on, — and for your own peculiar sphere 
Choose some eccentric path, — you cannot fail, 
And pray stick on a most portentous tail ! 

" Farewell ! I hope you are in health and gay ; 

For me, I never felt so well and merry — 
As for the bran-new idol of the day. 

Monkey or man, I am indifferent — very I 

Nor e'en will ask who is the Happy Jerry ; 
My jealousy is dead, or gone to sleep, 

But let me hint that you will want a wherry, 
Three weeks' spring-tide, and not a chance of neap. 
Your parlours will be flooded six feet deep ! 

" Oh Ellen! how delicious was that light 

Wherein our plighted shadows used to blend. 
Meanwhile the melancholy bird of night — 

No more of that — the lover's at an end. 

Yet if I may advise you, as a friend. 
Before you next pen sentiments so fond, 

Study your cycles — I would recommend 
Our Airy — and let South be duly conn'd, 
And take a dip, I beg, in the great Pond.* 

•Airy, South, and Pond, English Astronomers. 



184 HOOD'S OWN. 

"Farewell again ! it is farewell for ever! 

Before your lamp of night be lit up thrice, 
I shall be sailing, haply, for Swan River, 

Jamaica, or the Indian land of rice, 

Or Boothia Felix — happy clime of ice ! 
For Trebizond, or distant Scanderoon, 

Ceylon, or Java redolent of spice, 
Or settling, neighbour of the Cape baboon. 
Or roaming o'er — The Mountains of the Moon! 

"What matters where? my world no longer owns 

That dear meridian spot from which I dated 
Degrees of distance, hemispheres and zones, 

A globe all blank and barren and belated. 

What matters where my future life be fated ? 
With Lapland hordes, or Koords, or Afric peasant, 

A squatter in the western woods located. 
What matters where ? My bias, at the present. 
Leans to the country that reveres the Crescent ! 

" Farewell ! and if for ever, fare thee well ! 

As wrote another of my fellow-martyrs : 
I ask no sexton for his passing-bell, 

I do not ask your tear-drops to be starters. 

However I may die, transfix'd by Tartars, 
By Cobras poisoned, by Constrictors strangled, 

By shark or cayman snapt above the garters. 
By royal tiger or Cape lion mangled, 
Or starved to death in the wild woods entangled, 

" Or tortured slowly at an Indian stake, 
Or smother'd in the sandy hot simoom. 

Or crush'd in Chili by earth's awful quake. 
Or baked in lava, a Vesuvian tomb. 
Or dirged by syrens and the billows' boom, 

Or stiffen'd to a stock 'mid Alpine snows, 
Or stricken by the plague with sudden doom, 

Or suck'd by Vampyres to a last repose, 

Or self destroy'd, impatient of my woes; 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 185 

" Still fare you well, however I may fare, 

A fare perchance to the Lethean shore, 
Caught up by rushing whirlwinds in the air, 

Or dash'd down cataracts with dreadful roar : 

Nay, this warm heart, once yours unto the core, 
This hand you should have claim'd in church or minster, 

Some cannibal may gnaw" — she read no more — 
Prone on the carpet fell the senseless spinster, 
Losing herself, as 'twere, in Kidderminster ! 

Of course of such a fall the shock was great ; 

In rush'd the Mher, panting from the shop. 
In rush'd the mother, without cap on tcte. 

Pursued by Betty Housemaid with her mop ; 

The cook to change her apron did not stop. 
The charwoman next scrambled up the stair, — 

All help to lift, to haul, to seat, to prop. 
And then they stand and smother round the chair, 
Exclaiming in a chorus, " Give her air ! " 

One sears her nostrils with a burning feather. 

Another rams a phial up her nose ; 
A third crooks all her finger-joints together, 

A fourth rips up her laces and her bows, 

While all by turns keep trampling on her toes, 
And, when she gasps for breath, they pour in plump 

A sudden drench that down her thorax goes. 
As if in fetching her — some wits so jump — 
She must be fetch'd with water like a pump ! 

No wonder that thus drench'd, and wrench'd, and gall'd, 

As soon as possible, from syncope's fetter 
Her senses had the sense to be recall'd, 

" I'm better — that will do — indeed I'm better," 

She cried to each importunate besetter ; 
Meanwhile, escaping from the stir and smother. 

The prudent parent seized the lover's letter, 
(Daughters should have no secrets with a Mother) 
And read it thro' from one end to the other. 



186 HOOD'S OWN. 

From first to last, she never skipp'd a word — 
For young Lorenzo of all youths was one 

So wise, so good, so moral she averr'd, 
So clever, quite above the common run — 
She made him sit by her, and call'd him son, 

No matrimonial suit, e'en Duke's or Earl's, 
So flatter'd her maternal feelings — none ! 

For mothers always think young men are pearls 

Who come and throw themselves before their girls. 

And now, at warning signal from her finger, 
The servants most reluctantly withdrew, 

But list'ning on the stairs contrived to linger ; 
For Ellen, gazing round with eyes of blue, 
At last the features of her parent knew, 

And summoning her breath and vocal pow'rs, 
" Oh, mother ! " she exclaimed — " Oh, is it true — 

Our dear Lorenzo " — the dear name drew show'rs — 

" Ours,'^ cried the mother, "pray don't call him ours, 

" I never liked him, never, in my days ! " 

["Oh yes — you did " — said Ellen with a sob,] 

" There always was a something in his ways — " 
["So sweet — so kind," said Ellen, with a throb,] 
"His very face was what I call a snob, 

And, spite of West-end coats and pantaloons, 
He had a sort of air of the swell mob; 

I'm sure when he has come of afternoons 

To tea, I've often thought — I'll watch my spoons ! " 

** The spoons! " cried Ellen, almost with a scream, 
"Oh cruel — false as cruel — and unjust! 

He that once stood so high in your esteem ! " 
" He ! " cried the dame, grimacing her disgust, 
" I like him ! — yes — as any body must 

An infidel that scoffs at God and Devil : 
Didn't he bring you Bonaparty's bust ? 

Lord ! when he calls I hardly can be civil — 

My favourite was always Mr. Neville. 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 187 

" Lorenzo ? — I should like, of earthly things, 

To see him hanging forty cubits high ; 
Doesn't he write like Captain Rocks and Swings ? 

Nay, in this very letter bid you try 

To make yourself particular, and tie 
A tail on — a prodigious tail ! — Oh, daughter ! 

And don't he ask you down his area — fie ! 
And recommend to cut your being shorter. 
With brick-bats round your neck in ponds of water ?" 

Alas ! to think how readers thus may vary 

A writer's sense ! — What mortal would have thought 
Lorenzo's hint about Professors Airy 

And Pond to such a likeness could be brought ! 

Who would have dreamt the simple way he taught 
To make a comet of poor Ellen's moon. 

Could furnish forth an image so distraught, 
As Ellen, walking Regent Street at noon, 
Tail'd — like a fat Cape sheep, or a racoon ! 

And yet, whate'er absurdity the brains 

May hatch, it ne'er wants wet-nurses to suckle it : 
Or dry ones, like a hen, to take the pains 

To lead the nudity abroad, and chuckle it ; 

No whim so stupid but some fool will buckle it 
To jingle bell-like on his empty head, 

No mental mud — but some will knead and knuckle it, 
And fancy they are making fancy-bread ; — 
No ass has written, but some ass has read. 

No dolts could lead if others did not follow 'em, 

No Hahnemann could give decillionth drops, 
If any man could not be got to swallow 'em ; 

But folly never comes to such full stops. 

As soon, then, as the Mother made such swaps 
Of all Lorenzo's meanings, heads and tails, 

The father seized upon her malaprops — 
" My girl down areas — of a night ! 'Ods nails ! 
I'll stick the scoundrel on his area-rails ! 



188 HOOD'S OWN. 

" I will ! — as sure as I was christen'd John ! 

A girl — well borD — and bred, — and school'd at Ditton — 
Accomplish'd — handsome — with a tail stuck on ! 

And ehuck'd — Zounds ! — ehuck'd in horseponds like a kitten ; 

I wish I had been by when that was written !" — 
And doubling to a fist each ample hand, 

The empty air he boxed with, a-la^Bitton, 
As if in training for a fight, long plann'd, 
With Nobody — for love — at No Man's Land. 

« I'll pond— I'll tail him !"— In a voice of thunder 

He recommenced his fury and his fuss. 
Loud, open-mouth'd, and wedded to his blunder. 

Like one of those great guns that end in buss. 

"I'll teach him to write ponds and tails to us !" 
But while so menacing this-that-and-t'others. 

His wife broke in with certain truths, as thus : 
" Men are not women — fathers can't be mothers, — 
Females are females" — and a few such others. 

So saying, with rough nudges, willy-nilly, 

She hustled him outside the chamber-door, 
Looking, it must be owned, a little silly ; 

And then she did as the Carinthian boor 

Serves (Goldsmith says) the traveller that's poor : 
Id est, she shut him in the outer space. 

With just as much apology — no more — 
As Boreas would present in such a case. 
For slamming the street door right in your face. 

And now, the secrets of the sex thus kept, 

What passed in that important tete-a-tete 
'Twixt dam and daughter, nobody except 

Paul Pry, or his Twin Brother, could narrate — 

So turn we to Lorenzo, left of late. 
In front of Mrs. Snelling's sugar'd snacks. 

In such a very waspish stinging state — 
But now at the Old Dragon, stretched on racks, 
Fretting, and biting down his nails to tacks; 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 189 

Because that new fast four-inside — the Comet, 

Instead of keeping its appointed time, 
Had deviated some few minutes from it, 

A thing- with all astronomers a crime, 

And he had studied in that lore sublime ; 
Nor did his heat get any less or shorter 

For pouring upon passion's unslaked lime 
A well-grown glass of Cogniac and water, 
Mix'd stiff as starch by the Old Dragon's daughter. 

At length, " Fair Ellen" sounding with a flourish, 
The Comet came all bright, bran new, and smart ; 

Meanwhile the melody conspired to nourish 
The hasty spirit in Lorenzo's heart. 
And soon upon the roof he " topped his part," 

Which never had a more impatient man on. 
Wishing devoutly that the steeds would start 

Like lightning greased, — or, as at Ballyshannon 

Sublimed, " greased lightning shot out of a cannon !" 

For, ever since the letter left his hand, 

His mind had been in vacillating motion. 
Dodge-dodging like a fluster'd crab on land, 

That cannofask its way, and has no notion 

If right or left leads to the German Ocean — 
Hatred and Love by turns enjoy'd monopolies, 

Till, like a Doctor following his own potion, 
Before a learned pig could spell Acropolis, 
He went and booked himself for our metropolis. 

" Oh, for a horse," or rather four, — " with wings !" 

For so he put the wish into the plural — 
No relish he retained for country things. 

He could not join felicity with rural, 

His thoughts were all with London and the mural. 
Where architects — not paupers — heap and pile stones ; 

Or with the horses' muscles, called the crural. 
How fast they could macadamize the milestones 
Which pass'd as tediously as gall or bile stones. 



190 



HOOD'S OWN. 



Nor cared he more about the promised crops, 
If oats were looking up, or wheat was laid, 

For flies in turnips, or a blight in hops. 
Or how the barley prosper'd or decay'd; 
In short, no items of the farming trade, 




"lord, JOHN, herb's A BURROw! 

Peas, beans, tares, 'taters, could his mind beguile ; 

Nor did he answer to the servant maid. 
That always asked at every other mile, 
" Where do we change, Sir 1 " with her sweetest smile. 



" I wonder if her moon is full to-night ! " 

He mutter'd, jealous as a Spanish Don, 
When, lo ! — to aggravate that inward spite, 

In glancing at a board he spied thereon 

A play-bill for dramatic folks to con. 
In letters such as those may read, who run, 

« ' KING JOHN '—oh yes— I recollect King John ! 
'My Lord, they say five moons'— ^te moons! — well done! 
I wonder Ellen was content with one ! 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 191 

*'Five moons — all full ! — and all at once in heav'n! 

She should have lived in that prolific reign ! " 
Here he arrived in front of number seven, 

Th' abode of all his joy and all his pain ; 

A sudden tremor shot through every vein, 
He wish'd he'd come up by the heavy waggon, 

And felt an impulse to turn back again, 
Oh, that he ne'er had quitted the Old Dragon ! 
Then came a sort of longing for a flagon. 

His tongue and palate seem'd so parch'd with drouth, — 

The very knocker fill'd his soul with dread, 
As if it had a living lion's mouth. 

With teeth so terrible, and tongue so red, 

In which he had engaged to put his head. 
The bell-pull turn'd his courage into vapour, 

As though 't would cause a shower-bath to shed 
Its thousand shocks, to make him sigh and caper — 
He look'd askance, and did not like the scraper. 

" What business have I here? (he thought) a dunce 

A hopeless passion thus to fan and foster. 
Instead of putting out its wick at once ; 

She's gone — it's very evident I've lost her, — 

And to the wanton wind I should have toss'd her — 
Pish ! I will leave her with her moon, at ease. 

To toast and eat it, like a single Gloster, 
Or cram some fool with it, as good green cheese. 
Or make a honey-moon, if so she please. 

*' Yes — ^here I leave her," and as thus he spoke, 

He plied the knocker with such needless force, 
It almost split the panel of sound oak ; 

And then he went as wildly through a course 

Of ringing, till he made aprubt divorce 
Between the bell and its dumbfounded handle. 

Whilst up ran Jltty, out of breath and hoarse, 
And thrust into his face her blown-out candle, 
To recognise the author of such scandal. 



192 



HOOD'S OWN. 



Who, presto ! cloak, and carpet-bag to boot, 

Went stumbling, rumbling, up the dark one pair, 

With other noise than his whose " very foot 
Had music in't as he came up the stair : " 
And then with no more manners than a bear, 

His hat upon his head, no matter how. 
No modest tap his presence to declare, 

He bolted in a room, without a bow. 

And there sat Ellen, with a marble brow ! 




"meet mk by moonlight alone. ' 

Like fond Medora, watching at her window, 
Yet not of any Corsair bark in search — 

The jutting lodging-house of Mrs. Lindo, 

"The Cheapest House in Town" of Todd and Sturch, 
The private house of Reverend Doctor Birch, 

The public-house, closed nightly at eleven. 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 193 

And then that house of prayer, the parish church, 
Some roofs, and chimneys, and a glimpse of heaven. 
Made up the whole look-out of Number Seven. 

Yet something in the prospect so absorbed her, 

She seemed quite drowned and dozing in a dream; 
As if her own belov'd full moon still orb'd her, 

Lulling her fancy in some lunar scheme. 

With lost Lorenzo, may be, for its theme — 
Yet when Lorenzo touch'd her on the shoulder, 

She started up with an abortive scream. 
As if some midnight ghost, from regions colder. 
Had come within his bony arms to fold her. 

« Lorenzo ! "— " Ellen ! "—then came " Sir!" and " Madam I" 

They tried to speak, but hammer'd at each word, 
As if it were a flint for great Mac Adam ; 

Such broken English never else was heard. 

For like an aspen leaf each nerve was stirr'd, 
A chilly tremor thrill'd them through and through, 

Their efforts to be stiff were quite absurd, 
They shook like jellies made without a due 
And proper share of common joiner's glue. 

" Ellen ! I'm come — to bid you — fare — farewell " 

They thus began to fight their verbal duel ; 
" Since some more hap — hap — happy man must dwell — ^" 

" Alas — Loren — Lorenzo ! — cru — cru — cruel ! " 

For so they split their words like grits for gruel. 
At last the Lover, as he long had plann'd. 

Drew out that once inestimable jewel. 
Her portrait, which was erst so fondly scann'd, 
And thrust poor Ellen's face into her hand. 

"There — ^take it. Madam — take it back, I cra\^e, 
The face of one — but I must now forget her, 

Bestow it on whatever hapless slave 

Your art has last enticed into your fetter — 
And there are your epistles — there ! each letter ! . 

9 



194 HOODS OWN. 

I wish no record of your vow's infractions, 

Send them to South — or Children — you had better- 
They will be novelties — rare benefactions 
To shine in Philosophical Transactions! 

" Take them — pray take them — I resign them quite ! 

And there's the glove you gave me leave to steal — 
And there's the handkerchief, so pure and white 

Once sanctified by tears, when Miss O'Neil — » 

But no — you did not — cannot— do not feel 
A Juliet's faith, that time could only harden ! 

Fool that I was, in my mistaken zeal ! 
I should have led you, — by your leave and pardon- 
To Bartley's Orrery, not Covent Garden ! 

*' And here's the birth-day ring — nor man nor devil 
Should once have torn it from my living hand, 

Perchance 'twill look as well on Mr. Neville ; 
And that — and that is all — and now I stand 
Absolved of each dissever'd tie and band — 

And so, farewell, till Time's eternal sickle 
Shall reap our lives ; in this, or foreign land, 

Some other may be found for truth to stickle. 

Almost as fair — and not so false and fickle !" 

And there he ceased : as truly it was time, 
For of the various themes that left his mouth, 

One half surpass'd her intellectual climb : 

She knew no more than the old Hill of Howth 
About that " Children of a larger growth," 

Who notes proceedings of the F. R. S.'s ; 

Kit North v/as just as strange to her as South, 

Except the south the weathercock expresses. 

Nay, Bartley's Orrery defied her guesses. 

Howbeit some notion of his jealous drift 
She gather'd from the simple outward fact, 

That her own lap contained each slighted gift ; 
Though quite unconscious of his cause to act 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 196 

So like Othello, with his face unblack'd ; 
" Alas !" she sobbed, *' your cruel course I see, 

These faded charais no longer can attract ; 
Your fancy palls, and you would wander free, 
And lay your own apostacy on me ! 

« I false ! — unjust Lorenzo ! — and to you ! 

Oh, aU ^e holy gospels that incline 
The soul to truth, bear witness I am true ! 

By all that lives, of earthly or divine — 

So long as this poor throbbing heart is mine— 
/ false !— the world shall change its course as soon ! 

True as the streamlet to the stars that shine — 
True as the dial to the sun at noon, 
True as the tide to ' yonder blessed moon' 1" 




And as she spoke, she. pointed through the window. 
Somewhere above the houses' distant tops, 

Betwixt the chimney-pots of Mrs. Lindo, 

And Todd and Sturch's cheapest of all shops 
For ribbons, laces, muslins, silks, and fops; — 

Meanwhile, as she upraised her face so Grecian, 



196 HOOD'S OWN. 

And eyes suffused with scintillating drops, 
Lorenzo looked, too, o'er the blinds Venetian, 
To see the sphere so troubled with repletion. 

" The Moon !" he cried, and an electric spasm 
Seem'd all at once his features to distort. 

And fix'd his mouth, a dumb and gaping chasm — 
His faculties benumb'd and all amort — 
At last his voice came, of most shrilly sort, 

Just like a sea-gull's wheeling round a rock — 
" Speak ! — Ellen ! — is your sight indeed so short ! 

The Moon ! — Brute ! savage that I am, and block ! 

The Moon ! (O, ye Romantics, what a shock !) 

Why that's the new Illuminated Clock !" 



197 



AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE 



' I cannot fill up a blank better than with a short history of this self-same StarUng." 

Stebne's Sentimental. Joubnky. 



Amongst professors of astronomy, 
Adepts in the celestial economy, 

The name of Herschel's very often cited ; 
And justly so, for he is hand and glove 
With ev'ry bright intelligence above ; 
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop, 
Watching the stars upon the house's top. 

That once upon a time he got be-knighted. 

In his observatory thus coquetting 

With Venus — or with Juno gone astray, 
All sublunary matters quite forgetting 
In his flirtations with the winking stars. 
Acting the spy — it might be upon Mars — 

A new Andre ; 
Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping. 
At Dian sleeping ; 
Or ogling thro' his glass 
Some heavenly lass 
Tripping with pails along the Milky Way ; 
Or looking at that Wain of Charles the Martyr's • — 

Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky. 
When lo ! a something with a tail of flame 
Made him exclaim, 
•' My stars !" — he always puts that stress on my — 
" My stars and garters ! 



198 



HOOD'S OWN. 



" A comet, sure as I'm alive ! 
A noble one as I should wish to view ; 
It can't be Halley's though, that is not due 

Till eighteen thirty-five. 
Magnificent ! how fine his fiery trail ! 
Zounds ! 'tis a pity, though he comes unsought — 
Unask'd — unreckon'd — in no human thought — 

He ought — he ought — he ought 

To have been caught 
With scientific salt upon his tail !" 




"POSSK COMKTATIS." 



" I look'd no more for it, I do declare, 
Than the Great Bear ! 

As sure as Tycho Brahe is dead, 
It really enter'd in my head 
No more than Berenice's Hair !" 
Thus musing, Heaven's Grand Inquisitor 
Sat gazing on the uninvited visiter 



THE COMET. 199 

Till John, the serving-man, came to the upper 
Regions, with " Please your Honour, come to supper." 

" Supper ! good John, to-night I shall not sup 
Except on that phenomenon — look up ! " 
" Not sup! " cried John, thinking with consternation 
That supping on a star must be starvation, 

Or ev'n to batten 
On Ignes Fatui would never fatten. 
His visage seem'd to say, — that very odd is, — 
But still his master the same tune ran on, 
" I can't come down, — go to the parlour, John, 
And say I'm supping with the heavenly bodies." 

"The heavenly bodies!" echoed John, " Ahem!" 

His mind still fall of famishing alarms, 

" 'Zooks, if your Honour sups with them., 

In helping, somebody must make long arms ! " 

He thought his master's stomach was in danger, 

But still in the same tone replied the Knight, 

" Go down, John, go, I have no appetite, 
Say I'm engaged with a celestial stranger." — 
Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs, 
" Wouldn't the stranger take a bit down stairs ? " 

'• No," said the master, smiling, and no wonder. 

At such a blunder, 
" The stranger is not quite the thing you think. 
He wants no meat or drink. 
And one may doubt quite reasonably whether 

He has a mouth. 
Seeing his head and tail are join'd together, 
Behold him, — there he is, John, in the South." 

John look'd up with his portentous eyes, 
Each rolling like a marble in its socket, 
At last the fiery tad-pole spies, 
And, full of Vauxhall reminiscence, cries, 
" A rare good rocket ! " 



200 



HOOD'S OWN. 



" A what ! A rocket, John ! Far from it ! 

What you behold, John, is a comet; 
One of those most eccentric things 

That in all ages 

Have puzzled sages 

And frighten'd kings ; 
With fear of change that flaming meteor, John, 
Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range" — 

"Do he?" cried John; 

" Well, let him flare on, 
/ haven't got no sovereigns to change ! " 




THE HARVEST MOON. 



201 



€)^t (D tie nil, 



CONSIDERED PER SE 



" A man whom both the waters and the wind, in that vast tennis-court, have made 
the ball for them to play upon, entreats you pity him." — Pebicles. 



It was during a voyage to Margate, many summers ago — 
before steam was — that the little episode occurred which I am 
going to relate, by way of text, to some observations on the 
ocean. 

The importance of the Mariner's Compass to the sailor is as 
well known universally as the utility of the little one-eyed instru- 
ment, for which Whitechapel is so famous, to the tailor : but its 
mode of action, and the manner of its application, must be far 
less generally understood. Whether the plougher of the deep 
mends his checked shirts with the Needle, or sews the canvas 
into sails with it, or uses it, after a battle, to extract the splinters 
from his hard tarry hand, are speculations likely enough to be 
entertained by the plougher of the land ; at least by those clod- 
compelling turners of the furrows, mid-country bom and bred, 
who, despite of their predilection for such naval ballads as Tom 
Bowling and Jack Junk, have never set their simple eyes on ship 
or sailor, or the sea which they subdue. To many Londoners 
even, who jostle the tar in the streets, and behold tier after tier 
of masted vessels from their lower Bridge, — who have perchance 

stood and stared at the Compass itself in some shop-window of 

9* 



202 HOOD'S OWN. 

Leadenhall, or the still more maritime Minories, the Card with its 
(7arc?-inal Points, is an undeciphered hieroglyphic. It did not 
violently surprise me, therefore, to see a simple-looking creature 
of this latter class go and take a long wondering look into the 
binnacle, like a child peeping at the tortoise in an Italian's show- 
box ; and doubtless, to his callow apprehension, the veering Guide 
was as much a thing of hfe and instinct as the outlandish reptile 
to the urchin. It was not until after a tedious poring at it — 
long enough, if there were any truth in animal magnetism, for 
the Needle and the Man to have understood one another by 
mutual sympathy — that the wonderer made up to the steersman, 
and begged for an elucidation of the marine mystery. Fortu- 
nately for the querist, the helmsman, along with all the charac- 
teristic good-nature of his fraternity, had none of the coyness, as 
to the secrets of the craft, with which the ripe sailor is apt to 
treat the raw voyager ; perhaps not without cause. The nautical 
truths, masonic, may deserve to be obtained by degrees of proba- 
tion : in the present case the unreserved communication of occult 
knowledge led to anything but a satisfactory result. No one 
could take more pains — call them pleasures rather — than the 
honest man at the wheel, to explain the use and properties of 
the Compass : he boxed it again and again for the benefit of the 
gaping neophyte ; a benevolent smile, and the twinkling of his 
blue eyes, declaring that he felt amply repaid by the supposed 
proficiency of his pupil, — when, all of a sudden, his well-earned 
pride was dashed to the deck by the pupil's turning away on his 
heel, with a hunch of his shoulders, a blank look, and a dissatis- 
fied grunt, exclaiming, — 

" Well, arter all, I don't see how the turning round of that *ere 
little needle can move about the rudder !" 



THE OCEAN. 203 

I should have been no Christian man, but a brute beast, had I 
not sympathized with the feelings of the steersman. Contempt 
took the lead. All " the dismal hiss of universal scorn," ascribed 
to Milton's devils, seemed condensed into his Avhistle. Next 
came Resentment, wishing back the Cockney-Tailor to his shop- 
board, sitting on his own needle — and then came Pity, inducing 
the milder reflection, 

" I wonder the poor 'gentleman's friends allows him to go 
about by himself !" 

I doubt whether the force of contempt and pity could further 
go : and yet — to confess a truth — shall I ? — dare I ? — say, that 
to the intense sea-ignorance which incurred the scorn, anger, and 
compassion of our Palinurus, I look back with Envy ? 

Methinks, every British Heart of Oak recoils, and every British 
head of the same material shakes itself, at such an avowal! 
Every lip that ever helped to chorus Rule Britannia, curls itself 
up — noses which never sniffed sea-weed tacitly snub me, — eyes 
which never glimpsed the ocean avert themselves in disgust. I 
am bespattered with salt-water oaths and tobacco-juice. The 
Thames Yacht Clubs, on the strength of having learned to bel- 
low " Elm a-lee !" — " Ard-hup !" and " Oist away !" agree to run 
me down. The very clerks of the Navy Pay Office propose to 
seize me up to the dingy fresh-water Neptune in their fore-court. 
Captain Basil Hall swears on his best anchor-button, to keel-haul 
me daily, for six months, in " the element which never tires.'* 
The last of the Dibdins asks for my card. Campbell flares up 
with the "Meteor Flag of England," and vows to knock me 
down with its staff ; — nay, our Sailor King * himself repudiates 
me, as a subject, for not relishing his High Seas ! 

* Written in the time of William IV., who had been in the Navy 



204: HOOD'S OWN. 

It can't be helped. When one is confessing, there is no place 
under the sun like the Ocean for " making a clean breast of it :" 
— and am not I here staggering and tumbling — soberly tipsy — 
aboard a lubberly Dutch-built hull, becalmed in a heavy swell — 
dreaming, when I can sleep, that I am a barrel-churn, revolving 
with my inside full of half-turned cream or incipient butter ; — 
and finding, when I awake, that dreams do not go so altogether 
by contraries ? 

If this perpetual motion hold, the cargo of cheeses we shipped 
at Dordrecht, flat as single Glo'sters, will be delivered in London 
spherical as bowls ! The Jung Vrouw herself, before she reaches 
the Nore, will be a washing-tub ! I have doubts whether the 
salt beef, produced at this day's luncheon, was, originally, a round. 
The leathern conveniency that I brought aboard, a fair and 
square trunk, is already almost a portmanteau ; — and, what is 
worse, every several morsel I have swallowed this blessed day 
without bliss, seems rolling itself into a bolus or a pill, — whethei 
of opium or ipecacuanha, I leave you to divine. If the calm 
should continue, I may become — who knows ? — a Ball myself — a 
Master BifBn ! Every half-hour, on feeling my knees and elbows, 
I find joints by this friction losing some of their asperities, and 
getting obtuser. A little more, and I shan't have a good point 
about me ! 

Is such as this a season to be squeamishly retentive in deliver- 
ing one's sentiments ? Or, rather, is not open candour inevitable ; 
seeing that you cannot have any reserve even with the merest 
stranger ? It is impossible to keep your feelings to yourself. In 
spite, then, of Britannia, the Yacht Club, the Navy Pay, — of 
Dibdin, Campbell, and Basil Hall, — of the Lords of the Admi- 
ralty, with Portsmouth, Devonport, and Gosport, to boot — in spite 



THE OCEAN. 



205 



of the Royal William, nay, in spite of my very self, the truth will 
out ! — not sneaking out, or stepping out, or backing out, but bolting 
out, in a plain unequivocal straightforward style. I do evny the 
simple man, with his sheer ignorance about rudders and compasses. 
I do detest and abominate the ocean — or to phrase it more mildly 
— the sea and I cannot agree with each other — there is sure 
to be falling out between us — we can never be bosom friends. 
The Marine Society must despise rae for it ; my Elder Brethren 
of the Trinity House will long to dispose of me as Joseph was 
made away with by his elder brethren ; Boatswain Smith will 
preach, write Tracts and distribute them, against me : the 
Greenwich Pensioners will bind themselves by a round robin to 
kick me with their knottiest legs ; Long Tom Coffin himself will 
be for fetching me, with a shroud in one hand, and a dead-light 
in the other ; but I cannot eat my words. 




S K K-S A W. 



It is no time, when you cannot keep your legs, to "stand 
bandying compliments with your sovereign," that is, Neptune. 
If he were present at this moment, in this cabin, I would tell 



206 HOOD'S OWN. 

him, from this my seat on its floor, that he might very much 
improve his paternal estate, to wit, by levelling, and still more by 
draining it. 

I would flatly say to him, lying flat on my face as it now hap- 
pens, that a few little gravel walks, merely across and across it, 
would be of rare advantage both for show and use. For 'tis a 
sorry pleasure-garden that is all fish-pond ; and, finally, I would 
broadly hint to him, from the broad of my back, as I am at this 

present But this is bullying Taurus behind his back. 

There is no sea-god present, only the Skipper. How he skips in 
such weather, give him his pick of all the ropes in the ship, is a 
miracle I would fain see ere I beHeve in it. For my own part 
I cannot even step deliberately over a thread. Perhaps, without 
going too curiously into the Doctrine of Predestination, as re- 
gards the soul, it may hold good as concerns the body. Un- 
doubtedly there be some men born to sit fast upon horses ; others 
to fall off therefrom as if they had soaped saddles. Some to 
slide and skate upon the ice ; others only to slip, straddle, and 
sprawl upon it. Some to walk, or at least waddle, on ships' 
decks ; others to flop, flounder, wallow, and gi'ovel thereon. That 
is my destiny. None can be more safe on the Serpentine, or sure 
in the saddle ; — but Fate, long before my great-great-great-grand- 
father was put to his feet, forbade me sea-legs. An average 
pedestrian on land, on the caulked plank I am a born cripple, 
hopeless of cure. Put me apprentice to the Goodwin, or the 
Dudgeon Light, at the end of my term you shall find me as un- 
safe on my soles as when I first paid my footing. Even now, 
whilst Hans Vandergroot and his crew are comfortably prome- 
nading, I rock and totter, balancing one end against the other, 
like a great rickety babe, until, after some posturing and scram- 



THE OCEAN. 207 

bling, I trip up on nothing, and fall flat on everything. An 
earthquake in London, when its streets are what is called greasy, 
could not more puzzle my centre of gravity ; if, indeed, I was 
not born a mathematical monster, devoid of that material point ! 

By way of a clincher, Fate, who never does things by halves, 
whilst foredooming me incapable of standing my ground at sea, 
has also denied me the power of settling it. A camp-stool is sure 
to decamp with me ; a chair, as if it stood on Siberian ice, sud- 
denly throws itself on its back, and behold me in an extempore 
sledge ! Barrels roll from under me ; coils of rop'e sliuffle me 
off. Even on the plain bare hard deck, or cabin floor, I throw 
demi-summersets, as if I had been returned to Parhament to 
represent the Antipodes by sitting on the back of my head. 

To complete the Sea Curse, — there are three Fates, and each 
had a boon for me at my birth — it was ordained that, like the 
great Nelson, I should never sail from fresh water into salt, with- 
out knowing it by a general rising and commotion, which might 
be called figuratively, a Mutiny at the Nore. 

Like the standing and sitting infirmity, it is incurable. On my 
voyage outwards I tried every popular recipe ; the hard ones first, 
to wit, raw carrots, raw onions, sailors' biscuit with Dutch cheese, 
hard-boiled eggs, hard dumplings, raw stockfish. Next the easy 
ones : namely, cream cheese, Welsh rabbits, maccaroni, very 
hasty pudding, and insupportable soup. Then the neutrals : such 
as chewed blotting-paper, dry oatmeal, pounded egg-shells, scraped 
chalk, and unbaked dough. 

To wash these down, I took, by prescription, tea without milk, 
coffee without sugar, bark without wine, water without brandy ; 
and these formulae all failing, I then tried them, as witches pray, 
backwards ; brandy without water, wine without bark, and so 



208 HOOD'S OWN. 

fortli. The experimental combinations followed ; rum and milk, 
and mustard ; eggs and wine, and camomile tea ; gin and beer, 
and vinegar ; sea-water and salad-oil, mulled, with sugar and nut- 
meg. Of which last, I drank by advice most prodigiously, the 
Doctors of the Marine College dispensing always on the Homoeo- 
pathic principle, that a large dose of anything, whereof a little 
would set you wrong on the land, will set you right on the sea. 

I need hardly say that, with my predisposed necessitarian 
viscera, all these infallible remedies failed of any eflfect, except to 
aggravate my case. Nothing short of liquid lead, maybe, or po- 
table plaster of Paris would have proved a settler. 

Happy the man who hath never been driven in his despair to 
test, detest, invoke; evoke, swallow, and unswallow, such drugs 
and draughts of the naval Pharmacopoeia ! Thrice happy ci\Tic 
simpleton who hath never learned how the rudder revolveth, at 
the risk of turning round himself. 

Vandergroot is visibly in course of transformation. At every 
visit to the cabin he looks more and more like a dutch-pin. He 
talks to me roundly, and gets blunter and blunter! The last 
time I felt, I had no small to my back. If I may guess at my 
own figure, it is now about an oval. I must look like one of 
Leda's babies, just emerged, with their insignificant buds of legs 
and arms, from the Qgg ! From an oval to a circle is but a step. 
Heaven help me when I get landed, round and sound, as they 
say of cherries ! How shall I get home— how get up— (there 
will be a short way down) — mine own staii-s ? How shall I sit ? 
Instead of my old libraiy chair, I must borrow its three-legged 
stool of the terrestial globe. 

Either my head swims, or the cabin is getting circular! X 
shall roll about in it like a bolus in its box ! If I am not merely 



THE OCEAN. 209 

giddy, I am already as spherical as the earth ; — a little flatted, or 
so, that is, towards the poles. What a horrible rough calm ! I 
will down on my knees, if I have knees, and with clasped hands, 
if hands remain to me, pray, beg, and supplicate for a dismal 
storm to batter me into shape again, though it be but nine- 
bobble-square ! 

I get more and more candid and communicative every moment* 
I can keep nothing to myself: you shall have my whole heart. 
I abhor, loathe, execrate, the sea ! If I could throw up my hat, 
my cry would be " Land for ever ! " A fico for Tom Tough ! 
Down with Duncan, Howe, and Jervis ! No Dibdin ! 

If ever I get ashore, able to chalk upon a wall, you shall read 
— Ask for Stoke Pogis ! Try Lupton Parva ! If ever I get to a 
dry desk again, to write verse upon, — and the poetry of the ocean 
is all on the land, its prose only upon the sea, — you shall have a 
rare new melody, published by Power, to some such strain as this : — 

The sea ! the D ! 

The terrible horrible sea ! 

The stormy, tumbling, 

Qualmy-jumbling, 

Spirit-humbling, 

Shingle-stumbling, 

Sea-weed-fumbling, 

Wearing, crumbling, 

Mischief-mumbling, 

Growling, grumbling, 
Like thunder far off rumbling 

That last Hne halteth in its feet, as well it may, when the poet 
cannot keep his legs. Oh ! it is well for Cornwall, born perchance 
" with one foot on sea and one foot on shore " at the Land's End, 
— I have seen a picture of it by Turner, a bare bleak rocky pro- 
montory, with some nineteen gulls and cormorants sitting thereon. 



210 HOOD'S OWN. 

each with its tail turned contemptuously towards the barren 
granite, feldspar, and like sordid soils which there represent land. 
— It is well enough for him to chaunt laudations of the briny 
element, and cry up those amphibia, his first cousins almost, the 
Nereids and Tritons. Or it may become those others, born in a 
berth, and christened in brine, with Neptune for sponsor, to sing 
slightingly of the dry ground, on which they cannot claim even a 
parish. But my nativity was otherwise cast — I am a grass lamb, 
yeaned on the green sward — oh sweet sweet sweet Cropton-le- 
Moor, down in dear dear Wiltshire ! 

That pastoral reminiscence hath made me worse. It has given 
me an appetite — for acres. Methinks I yearn and long and 
crave for nice clay, delicious mould, and crisp pebbles, in a pa- 
roxysm of that strange bulimy that attacks the African Dirt Eater. 
Something of Nebuchadnezzar's grazing propensity comes along 
with it. Gracious Heaven ! can it be possible that, after having 
been battered and shaken out of all shape, — a mere mass of living 
flesh, like the unlicked ursine cub,— this same Circean Jung 
Vrouw has taken it into her figure-head to beat, bang, bump, and 
rumbledy-thump me into another form, a horse, a ram, or a 
brindled bull ! 

Thrice brute and beast-hysena! Were- wolf! Dragon ! horned 
Devil ! that thou wast, my Land-steward, Peter Stuckey ! after 
counselling me before thy last audit to abate my rents, to volun- 
teer to reduce them thyself by absconding, across sea, with the 
whole receipt! Thrice Soland goose, booby, noddy, sea-calf, 
land-donkey, and loggerhead turtle was I, thus impoverished, in- 
stead of economising, to pursue thee on an element where I can- 
not control my out-goings ! 

Donner and Blitzen! what a crash! my rash prayer was 



THE OCEAN. 211 

heard : there is a storm coming — as the Powers proposed to 
storm Angiers in King John's days — from all the four quarters 
at once ! I must needs turn in : but how vilely this bed is made 
with the foot two yards higher than the head ! No, the head is 
highest — perpendicular. I designed to lie down, and here I am 
standing bolt erect on my heels — no, on my head. It must be 
getting cold: the very trunks, stools and tables are making a 
move towards the stove — nay, now we are in some sudden peril, 
for they are all doing their best to rush up the cabin-stair. Whew 
— that sea last shipped must needs have put all the Dutchmen's 
pipes out. Another plunge ; and a flood of brine soaks me 
through, shirt, sheet, and blankets. There is no- washing put out 
here, I perceive ; 'tis all done at home. What a complex, chaotic 
motion, — the ship tosses and flings like a wild desert-born horse, 
that is trying to rear, kick up behind, turn round and round, and 
roll on his back at one and the same moment. This is no Dutch 
ship, but a Dutch fair — with the drums, gongs, speaking-trumpets, 
and other discords, all braying together ; and I am on the rock- 
ing-horse, the round-about, in the up-and-down, and each of the 
swings, all at once ! Another crash ! The Jung Vrouw is be- 
reaved of her little one, alias the long-boat. How kind of Vander- 
groot to come down to tell me of it, direct, through the sky-light, 
instead of going round by the stair ! How kind of that table, 
lying on its back, to catch him in its legs ! Angels of grace be 
near us ! He tells me, as he sways up and down, partly in High, 
partly in Low Dutch, that the Jung Vrouw herself is washed 
over-board ! But no — I misconstrued him. 'Tis only her great 
ruddy staring figure-head — which the blundering Holland ship- 
wrights had stuck astern, on the crown of the tiller — that is gone 
adrift. Oh how I wish from my soul of souls that I could see 



212 HOOD'S OWN. 

the Commodore of the Thames Yachts now pulhng, within hail, 
in the Wenus ! Or, the last Dibdin taking a chair — or the chair 
taking him — in this cabin ! Or, Campbell essaying to write 
down a new sea-song on yon topsy-turvy table ! And oh ! to 
behold the author of " The deep deep Sea" sitting on the poop, 
singing to that floating Young Woman's head and bust, taken by 
mistake for a mermaid's ! 

Another shout. Pieter Petei-soon, in heaving the lead, hath 
chucked himself in along with it ! I do not wonder ; he heaveth 
after my own fashion, by wholesale. Have I not within the last 
two hours rejected, discharged, and utterly cast from me in dis- 
gust, the whole ocean, nay all the oceans, German, Atlantic, Pa- 
cific — the Arctic last, its solid calms, the next best things to Terra 
Firma, not so violently disagreeing with me as the rest. And do 
I not know and feel that I am now about to give up Neptune, 
trident and all, with the whole salt-water mythology ? I war- 
rant, ere ten minutes do come, there shall not remain within me 
so much as a syren's mirror, or her tortoise-shell comb : — not one 
solitary Triton will be left on my stomach. Some unsavoury 
odour about the cabin — marvellously like the smell of oil paint — 
hath just given me a new turn, by conjuring up all the nauseous 
pictures of marine allegories, which, even on steady dry land, 
used to stir and provoke my spleen. 

Oh ! that they were all here. President, R. A., and A. R. A., 
in a string, climbing after me up this perilous slippery stair, to 
the more perilous slippery deck, there to crawl on all-fours to the 
ship's side, and clinging like cats or monkeys to the quarter- 
boards, take a trembhng peep at what Vandergroot calls " den 
wild zee !" What an awful sight ! The tempest-tost sky is as 
troubled as the ocean : whilst betwixt the jagged base of the low 



THE OCEAN. 213 

blaxjk cloud, and the still jaggeder crest of the sea, the red 
angry lightning restlessly darts to and fro, as if in search of 
whatever presuming mortal dares fare between them ! Oh tell 
me, Mister Elias Martin — if you a'nt dead — is the tossing crest 
of yonder mad black billow, that comes racing after us, at all like 
the black worsted fringe which your brethren are apt to hang on 
the necks of their marine Arabians ? But hush, yonder comes 
Neptune himself, in his state-coach — aye, hats off — the wind 
hath taught ye manners. Lo I yonder he stands, — Pshaw ! no, 
no, no, — Zounds ! you are all gaping at honest Hans Vander- 
groot. Look to starboard — to the left hand ! That's the gentle- 
man, without his castor, nor indeed overwell togged otherwise for 
wet weather — with his beard lathered but not shaved — standing 
up in an oyster-shell drag, and attempting, like a sorry whip as 
he is, to tool his team of bokickers with a potato-fork. Did you 
ever see four such unbroke brutes as he hath to keep together 
— neither reined-up, nor down, nor indeed, any ribbons to hold 
at all — and as I would have laid a pony to nothing, there they 
go, no pace at all, 'cause why ? they are just come to some in- 
visible sea obelisk, and each horse is for going down a road of his 
own. . Did you ever set eyes on such action ? No stepping out 
— but all pawing and prancing and putting their feet down again 
where they pick them up, like Ducrow's dancing stud ; as sure 
as 1 am a judge, they have all got the string-halt in their fore 
legs, because they can't have it in their hinder ones ! You may 
swear safely that they have four bad colds besides, — and look 
what a rabble of naked postilions are hanging on by their manes, 
because they have no saddles, and if they had, they would never 
be able to sit in them with those salmon tails ! Between our- 
selves, Elias, 'tis no great shakes of a show ; the Lord Mayor's 



214 HOOD'S OWN. 

pageant on the water beats it all to sticks ; and if you make a 
picture of it, you will be a fool for your pains. Yet have I seen 
paintings by first-rate hands as like to this same trumpery Sadler's 
Wells water spectacle 

Murder ! murder ! Help ! help ! A surgeon and a shutter, 
if there be such comfortable things in this unneighbourly neigh- 
bourhood. ! oh ! oh ! oh ! Woe is me ! I am not — I am 
now certain and sure I am not a Ball 1 I have limbs and mem- 
bers ! legs and arms ! like other people's, only they're broke ; and 
a very distinct back. My head ! Oh ! my head, my head ; there 
are nine lumps thereon, and there are nine cabin stairs ! 

The real Sea-King, in resentment, I suppose, of my untimely 
caricature of him and his state-coach, after spitting nine gallons 
of foam in my face, knocked me flat with a wave, and then kick- 
ed me down stairs ; and here I am again trying to anoint my 
bruises with trunks, and bind them up with stools and tables, on 
the hard-hearted oak planks of the cabin-floor. Yet it is easier 
with me than I first feared. My legs are not broken, but merely 
bent. I am only bandy, and not lame for life ; but my sea-sick- 
ness is not cured. Am I likely to put up, better or worse, think 
you, with Neptune and his satellites, for this unhandsome usage ? 

The Jung Vrouw, meanwhile, is as giddy as ever, nay, worse 
ten times told. She hath taken a tinge of high-flying, deep- 
diving, German Romanticism into her wooden head, and is try- 
ing, plunge after plunge, to drown hei'self, and to make me com- 
mit wilful suicide along with her, whether I will or not. After 
that, there is no hope ; but oh ! yet oh, my Fates, let me die upon 
land. I have a hon'or of shipboard ! The idea of severing all ties 
in this cabin is trebly agonizing. Why, the very table is tied to 
the floor, the candlestick to the table, the snufici-s to the candle- 



THE OCEAN. 



215 



stick, the extinguisher to the snuffers ! Only the burning candle 
is unattached, and there— there it jumps into bed ! No matter ; 
it could as soon set fire to the Thames. Another squall! 




friend! dost thek call this the pacific?" 

How she groans, creaks, squeaks, strains, grinds, and squeezes, 
like a huge walnut in Neptune's crackers! Accursed Jung 
Vrouw ! thou wilt be the widowing of my poor dear old one ! 
Accursed Peter Stuckey, thou wilt be the murdering of my poor 
deaf old self ! 

I know not, for a surety, by reason that everything about me 
is quaking and shaking, but I suspect I am trembling like an 
aspen. It is impossible to hear, in the midst of this univei-sal 
hubbub, but methinks, I am wailing and weeping aloud. But 
one may as well make a manly exit. Like other men, in such 



216 



HOOD'S OWN. 



sea extremities, I would fain betake me to the rum-cask ; but 
either Hans Vandergroot sails on Temperance principles, or I 
have looked in the wrong place. I will try a stave or two 
instead. 

" Full fathom five—" 

Alas ! it will not go down. I am too much out of sorts for 
even the " delicate Ariel." It was one thing for Shakspeare, 
sailing, hugging the shore, never out of sight of land, on the safe 
serene coasts of Bohemia, to compose such a sea-song for the 
wood and canvas Tempests of the stage ; but it is another guess 
thing to hear it, as I do, howled through hoarse ship-ropes, by 




TH K BEST 



OVVER ANCHOR. 



Boreas himself, in a real storm. What comfort to me that every- 
thing about me shall suffer a sea-change ? — that my bones shall 



THE OCEAN. 217 

turn, forsooth, into coral ? I would not give a bad doit, with 
some of these poor metacarpal bones of mine to be rubbing the 
gums of the Royal Infent of Spain. I am not so blindly am- 
bitious as to wish that these two precious useful balls of mine, 
turned into pearls, should shine in the British crown itself, or, 
what is more tempting, in the hair of the beautiful Countess of 
B. What if some economical jeweller — I think I feel him at it 
— should take it into his head to split them, for setting in a 
ring ? As for the Syren's knell, I would as lief have it as long 
hereafter as may be, from the plain prosaic old sexton of St. 
Sepulchre's. I have no depraved yearning to be first wet-nui*sed 
to death, and then " lapped in Elysium," by Mermaids, the most 
cold, flabby, washy, fishy, draggletails ever invented to give any 
human fancy the ague — half-and-half monsters, neither fish, nor 
flesh, nor good red herring. A whole cargo of them, nay a glut 
of them, leaping alive, unfit for loving or eating, is not worth one 
loveable real woman at Billingsgate, or one of the eatable maids 
on her stall. I could never imagine the boldest and gallantest 
boatswain encountering such a sea-witch, on a lone beach — comb- 
ing the shrimps out of her wet sandy mud-coloured hair, and 
wriggling her foolish tail about, curling, or stretching it, or try- 
ing to put it into her pocket, forgetting that she has no pocket, 
as a shy man in company does not know what to do with his 
hands — I could never fancy him looking on such a creature, 
however attached to the fair sex, without his recoiling till he 
tumbled over his own pigtail, singing out, with a slight variation 
of a hne of Dibdin's, 

" Avert yon 'oman, gracious Heaven I" 

For other sea-temptations, I would not give my old white 

pony, that stumbles over every stone in his road, and some out 

10 



218 HOOD'S OWN. 

of it, to ride like that Lord Godolphin Arion over the seas on 
the fairest fish that was ever foaled. Speaking- under fear of 
death, I would rather, waiving all the romance, ride in a rill by 
a roadside on a stickle-back. On my solemn word, I would far 
Uefer bestride even a pond perch with his dorsal fin erect. But 
hark ! What means that dreadful cry ? Our death-bell is 
tolling in Dutch — ^"Del, del, is verlooren!" 

I must scramble, crawl, haul myself, spite of my sprained 
ankles, up unto the deck how I may. Next best unto witnessing 
our own funeral is the seeing how we are done to death. 

What a sight ! Here is the tiller tied hard a-port, or hard 
a-lee, as hard as they can tie it. Further back is the Skipper 
himself, entangled dismally by some cord or other to the stern- 
rails ; and yonder is his mate, with a hundred and fifty turns of 
rope round himself and the mizen-mast, which he seems trying 
to strengthen. The gunner, as I take him to be, with a prepos- 
terous superfluity of breeching, is made fast to look through a 
hole, which seems to have been meant for a window to a cannon ; 
and the carpenter, well pinioned and tethered by a stoilt rope to 
the back-stay, is sheepishly dangling therefrom, whenever his 
side of the ship is uppermost, like unto the Lamb of the Order 
of the Golden Fleece. The cook, having given away both his 
hands, is spliced, as if for life, unto the capstan. Adam Vaart is 
double-turned and double-knotted to the main-mast, and Hen- 
drick his brother is belayed down, on the broad of his back, in 
the place of the lost long-boat. Should the anchor be dropped, 
Jan Bart is sure, even fi'om head to foot, to go along with it. 
Poor little Yacob Yops, the apprentice, hath been turned over, 
and re-bound unto a ring-bolt, by articles which are called rope- 
yarns; and lo, up yonder, lashed by his legs to the rattlines, 



THE OCEAN. 219 

hangs Diedrick Dumm-Kopf, head downwards, hke a split cod 
left there to dry, in the main shrouds ! 

Oh ! that I were bound myself round and round all the ribs, 
from the top to the bottom, with good six-twist, lest even thus, 
in articulo mortis, I burst, split my sides, and die with excess of 
laughter. The Skipper, honest Hans, with much difficulty, for 
he grievously mistrusts his breathing to the beating of the wave, 
opening his mouth when it comes, and sealing up his lips when 
it is gone, hath let me into the whole secret. Considering the 
wild sea, he saith, and that no man can tie himself so surely as 
another man can, to some more steadfast substance, they had 
been all f;\stened, at their own special wish and agreement, to 
such hold-fasts as pleased them best, by Diedrick Dumm-Kopf, 
who afterwards to provide for his safety, as he judged surest, in 
order that he might liberate them again when the storm should 
be blown over. That accordingly, after first tying them all as 
securely as he was able, the said Diedrick betook himself to the 
main rigging, about half-way up, to which he lashed himself by 
the ankles, holding on likewise with his hands, and his great 
clasp-knife in his mouth. That the Jung Vrow driving before 
the wind and sea, they made shift, as they were, to navigate her 
pretty comfortably for some twenty minutes or thereby, when all 
of a sudden they saw Diedrick, being seized with a vertigo, let 
go his hold and drop into his present posture, from which he 
could never recover himself ; and it was that dismal sight which 
had extorted the universal outcry that I heard. 

I am sicker of the sea than ever ! Is the safety of a Christian 
man's life, and soul maybe, of no more interest than to be 
gambled away by such a set of Dutch Bottoms with Asses' heads 
on their shoulders ? Oh ! that the worthy Chairman and all the 



220 HOOD'S OWN. _ 

Underwriters of Lloyd's were here present on this deck — the 
mere sight of the Skipper's countenance there, with not so much 
meaning in it as a smoked pig's face, for that means to be eaten, 
woukl scare them from all sea-risks for ever ! 

Thanks be to Heaven ! yonder's a sail. It makes straight 
towards us — they come aboard. A Pilot ? — well said ! Oh, 
honest, good, dear Pilot, as you love a distressed poor country- 
man — as you understand the compass and how rudders are 
turned — if you know what a rope's end is, — take the biggest bit 
of a cable you can pick, and give yonder Dutch sea-calves a round 
dozen a-piece ! 'Twill cost you no great pains, seeing they are 
tied up ready to your hand. Pish ! never mind their offence ; 
they have mutinied against themselves. Smite, and spare not. 
I will go ashore meanwhile, in your boat. Hollo there ! help 
me down. Take heed to my footing. Catch me, all of you, in 
your arms. Now I am in. No, I an't ! I an't ! I an't ! 

If ye had not hauled me in again with that same boat-hook, I 
was drown'd. My shoulder bleeds for it, but I forgive. Never 
heed me ; look to your helms and sails. 'Tis only a gallon or 
two of sea-water, just swallowed, that is indisposed to go on shore 
with me. I am used to it, indeed I am. Pray, what is the 
name of this blessed boat ? The Lively Nancy. Lively indeed ! 
The Jung Vrow was a Quakeress to her ! At eveiy jump she 
takes, my heart leaps also. Pray, pray, pray take in some 
canvas. You think you be sailing, but you are committing sui- 
cide. They mind me no more than stones. Oh ! oh ! I am out 
of Danger's frying-pan into its fire ! Peter Stuckey will be a 
murtherer after all ! 

What a set of dare-devils ! They grin like baboons whilst she 
is driving with half her deck under water ! I will shut mine eyes 



THE OCEAN. 221 

and hold fast by something. I am worse than ever. I give my- 
self up. Oh ! oh ! what an awful roaring, hissing, grinding noise 
we are come into ! The bottom of the sea is coming out, or else 
the bottom of the boat ! Hah ! Help ! help ! I am heels 
upward ! Why did not some kindly soul forewarn me that she 
was going to stop short on the beach ? Stand all aside, and let 
me leap upon the sand. Ah ! I have made my nose spout gore 
in my over-haste to kiss my native land ! 

Blessed be dry ground! Farewell, ocean! farewell, Jung 
Vrouw and Lively Nancy ! Take my advice, and get married 
both of you to young farmers. Farewell, ye hang-dogs that saved 
me ! Share my blessing amongst you ; 'tis all I have upon me 
or in me. Farewell, Neptune ! We'll part friends. If you ever 
come to Cropton-le-Moor, I shall be glad to see you, and not till 
then. Hans ! Jan ! Pieter ! ferewell one and all of you ; " and 
if a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit it." Now for a 
sweet, safe, still, silent land-bed ! Set me but within a run and a 
jump of one, and in two chpped current minutes I will be fast 
asleep in it, even like the Irishman who forgot to say his 
prayers, but remembered to say amen. 



222 



tfjiB ditiiikBrB' intiiin0n|iniiB. 



" Dost thou love silence, deep as that before the winds were made ? Go not into 
the wilderness ; descend not into the profundities of the earth ; shut not up thy case- 
ments ; nor pour wax into the cells of thine ears, with little-faith'd, self-mistrusting 
Ulysses. Retire with me into a Quakers' Meeting." — Essays of Elia. 



It may not, or rather it cannot, be generally known, that an 
attempt was made last winter, by certain influential members of 
the Society of Friends, to establish a Conversazione at Tottenham, 
a neighbourhood especially favoured by that respectable and sub- 
stantial sect. The idea originated with a junior female branch of 
the opulent family of the Mumfords, which has been seated, time 
out of mind, in the vicinity of Bruce Castle; the notion was 
broached to a select few of the sisterhood, during a Sabbath walk 
homewards from the conventicle : the suggestion was relished ; 
and a conference was called, at which the scheme was seriously 
brought forward, and gravely considered. At first there was a lit- 
tle boggling at the proposed title, as savouring, it was thought, of 
Loquacity ; but the objection was dropped, on an explanation that 
although the word implied conversation, no one would be bidden 
to discourse against their own, inclination ; nay that even, amongst 
other persuasions, the conversazioni were frequently as distant as 
possible from a Negro " Talk," or a red Indian " Palaver," This 
little demur excepted, the plan went on swimmingly, and was finally 
adopted with the subdued hum which, in that quiet- loving com- 
munity, is equivalent to acclamations. A secretary was formally 



THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 223 

proposed, and tacitly chosen unanimously : being no other than 
the fair Foundress herself, the mild-spoken and meek-eyed Ruth 
Muraford. A few brief rules were then drawn up, and, after no 
debate, agreed to — some of them, considering the constitutional 
taciturnity of the sect, being sufficiently superfluous, as guarding 
against what Bubb Doddington called " a multiplicity of talk." 
For instance, the 9 th rule provided, that " no brother or sister 
should indulge in rambling irrelevant discourse, embracing a pro- 
fusion of topics, wide of the matter in hand." The 10th, that 
" no two or more Friends should disburden themselves of speech 
at one and the same time ; " and the 12th, that " no member of 
this society shall deliver himself or herself with unreasonable con- 
tinuity, to the prevention of other Friends who might desire to 
speak to the matter." From the list of subjects to be " spoken 
to " poKtics and polemics were excluded ; but poetry was allowed, 
or at least connived at, the excellent example of Bernard Barton 
and the Howitts having happily relaxed the primitive rigour of 
that proscription. Besides, it was well known, between Friends, 
that several of the younger female members, the fair secretary 
included, occasionally struck, or rather, as Quakei-s ought not to 
strike anything, twanged the lyre. For the rest, the society was 
modelled after other private literary associations ; it was to meet 
twice weekly, visiting the houses of the members in rotation, when 
original essays or papers were to be read, and afterwards dis- 
cussed ; provided always, that they afforded any Debateable Land 
to make a stand upon, seeing that at the end of the rules and 
regulations, a special article earnestly recommended, that in the 
selection of subjects all such topics should be avoided " as might 
lead to differences of opinion amongst the brethren." 

Such was — for it is defunct — the Tottenham Friends' Conver- 



224 HOODS OWN. 

sazione ; of whose existence I became aware but by accident. It 
was my good fortune, till lately, to live next door to a family of 
Quakers, and to make acquaintance with the eldest daughter, a 
young lively maiden just wearing out the last of her teens. I am 
afraid in the austere brown eyes of her parents she was not 
strictly considered as the flower of their flock, being a sort of non- 
conformist among nonconformists, as was especially to be seen in 
comparing her with her yonnger sisters, wbo seemed to have been 
brought up, or stuck up, under the most starched discipline. 
Instead of their plain close caps, — mere casts of their skulls taken 
in muslin, — she wore an airy fanciful structure of blonde and 
white ribbon, that a Parisian woman might have put on — at 
least of a morning. In lieu of their sleek mohair braids, her 
auburn ringlets flowed down her neck in all the " Unloveliness of 
Love-locks." To her star-like hazel eyes she allowed a little 
planetary liberty of circulation ; whereas it seemed the object of 
the others, to keep their demure brown orbs as immoveable in 
their faces, as bad halfpence nailed to counters. Instead of screw- 
ing up her lips, as if she had just come, minus a masticator, out 
of Cartwright's into an east wind, she sometimes gave her ivory 
teeth an airing, by smiling at some innocent fancy, to which she 
would give utterance, without trying to send her clear sweet voice, 
by a New North- West Passage, through her nose. As for her 
figure, it was none of those shapes which have no shape, and may 
be swaddled up without detriment in dingy drabs, olives, slates, 
and snuffy browns, — shapes which nature makes on her basin- 
pudding days, instead of using her best jelly-moulds — shapes like 
the bonnet-shapes which balance baskets of live mackerel. To 
see the symmetrical Rachel standing near either of her sisters, you 
would think you beheld (borrowing a local image) Tottenham 



THE QUAKERS^ CONVERSAZIONE. 225 

High Cross, beside the Waithman ObeUsk. Accordingly, the 
orthodox warp of her glossy satin was always shot with a woof of 
some one of those gayer prismatic tints, to wear which is 
reckoned, among the severer Foxites, "a profanation of the Rain- 
bow, deserving a second deluge." As will be seen hereafter, she 
put a little blue into her superfine silken hose; sometimes I even 
fancied that I detected a tinge of the more fleshy pink — in short, 
she was a Quakeress, but not of the sad-brown sort — only a 
brunette. 

With the old Friends, her parents, I cannot boast that I was 
even on speaking terms ; but with the lovely and hvely Rachel 
my acquaintance had ripened even to the calling her by her 
Christian name; and the reciprocation of her thou and thee, to 
which I was led, not as a convertite, but from learning, in my 
French and German Grammars, that the use of the second per- 
son singular was an especial token of intimacy and affection. In 
this our neighbourly intercourse, a system of mutual accommoda- 
tion sprang up between us, not by bills, but by books ; for which 
she drew upon me by pretty little notes of hand, that I duly hon- 
oured, making them payable over the back garden wall. Draw- 
ings and pieces of new music were equally negotiable. If I 
remember rightly, it was in return for Moore's Melodies — the 
exchange at the time being against me — that I received " Fox's 
Martyi"s." It was rather a ponderous tome for a lover of light 
reading ; and if St. Swithin's Festival had not fallen on a very wet 
Sunday in the country, I might never have opened its leaves, — 
if indeed they did not open of themselves, — thus letting fall cer- 
tain MSS. intrusted to their custody, and which I now proceed to 
make public. In a new edition of the " Curiosities of Literature '* 

they would deserve a distinguished place. 

10* 



226 



HOODS OWN. 



MINUTES OF THE TOTTENHAM FRIENDS' CONVER- 
SAZIONE; 

Established with a view to sober, Intellectual, and Literary 
unbendings. Now fii-st held, namely, on the fourteenth day of 
the eleventh month, one thousand eight hundred thirty and four. 
Brother Muraford, the Father of the present humble Pen, in the 
chair. 




"bear about the mockkry of woe.* 

A most powerful and worthy setting forth, both in regard of 
numbers and our proceedings. Firstly, a word in season from 
Friend Ohver. Secondly, a draft of the rules. Thirdly, an open- 
ing poem ; meditation thereon until the tenth hour, when our 
sitting was completed. Many congratulations between the 
brethren on the order, quiet, and decency thereof; myself, as its 



THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 227 

humble founder, very joyously elevated — even unto the shedding 
of tears. 

17. Some awkwardness on this night, arising out of the pre- 
sentation of nine several Negroes' Complaints to be read forth. 
Precedence yielded unto Sister Skeldrum's complaint, in respect 
of her being so ancient, namely, three-score and ten. After 
which. Sister Panyer's was gone through, detaining us nearhand 
until our hour of dissolution. Friend Black in the chair. 

21. The Negro Complaints resumed, whereof three more were 
gotten over. Sister Fagg kindly taking turn about with me in the 
deliverance thereof. Friend Thome in the chair. 

24. A spare meeting. The Negro Complaints brought to an 
end, save one ; Sister Rumble consenting, on much persuasion, to 
reserve the Sorrows of Sambo for the Abolition Anniversary. 
Friend Woolley in the chair. 

28. Friend Greathead read forth an original paper on the 
Manners of the Beavers. Much meditation thereon. Friend 
Stillfox in the chair. 

1-12. Friend Seagrave in the chair. Sister Meeking read forth 
her Essay on Silence, but in so humbe a tone, that little thereof 
was taken inward at our ears. No debate thereon. Dorcas 
Fysche, a visiter, craved to know whether Friends, not being 
members, were permitted to speak on the subject, and was replied 
to in the affirmative. Whereupon she held her peace. 

5. Sister Knight read forth a self-composed addressing of her- 
self unto sleep. To which no objection was made by any present. 
Friend Knapp in the chair. 

8. On this night I plucked up courage, and essayed to read 
forth mine own Stanzas on Universal Love ; but my voice failing 
me in the midst, it was completely finished for me by Friend 



228 HOOD'S OWN. 

Thicknesse, who did perversely c 'iitinue to pronounce Jews in- 
stead of Dews, whereof canae absurdity. Above all, in the line 
which singeth, — "Descend ye Dews on this my head." And 
again, — " Ye painted Flies that suck the Dews." 

12. No other member being prepared with originality. Sister 
Rumble read forth her Sorrows of Sambo. Much silent comment 
thereon.; Brother Kersey in the chair, who shamefully sufifered 
himself to be surprised with sleep. 

15. No lecturing, and, by course, no debate ; only meditation. 
A call made to order against Friend Dilly, who was in the chair, 
for untimeliness in asking the price of Anglo-Mexicans at a quarter 
before ten. 

19. Sister Fetterlock being a visitor in expectancy, every one 
confined themselves unto Newgate. Several of the brethren 
declared their convictions. Friend Roper in the chair. 

22. No lecturing. Sister Rumble distributed Sambo's Sorrows 
amongst us, one unto each ; the which she had caused to be im- 
printed at her own risk and cost. Friend Boulter was the chair. 

26. No lecturing. It pleased our worthy brother Upham, at 
his House of Welcome, to spread before us the g-eature comforts 
most abundant!}'-, with a great outpouring of the foreign luxury 
which is called Champagne ; the which was greatly discussed ; 
and Brother Upham thereafter rebuked for. the same, for that it 
was not of the kind which is still. 

29. Friend Stock read forth a narrative of his own Life and 
Personal Adventures, the which held us for half an hour. Some 
debate touching the imprinting of the same, at the cost of the 
Society, in the shape of a Tract ; which was agreed to, but put 
off at the instance of Friend Stock himself, in order to give him 
time to live into the shape of a pamphlet. Friend Smallbones 
went through the chair. 



THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 



229 



2-1-35. No assembly, by reason of the outrageous wind and 
hail, excepting Sister Rumble, with a new original poem, called 
" The Moral Gipsy." The which she did read forth from the 
chair to my humble self and family, and our serving-man, Simon 
Dunny. 

5. Friend Broadbent read forth, in part, an Essay on Innocent 
Jocularity ; the which, in sundry passages, provoked dissentients, 
as tending to a defence of levity. A stiflf debate Ihereon, in 
which all the brethren were agreeable to censure. Great merri- 
ment at Friend Sexton in his rebuking, saying " Christian gravy," 
instead of gravity, by a slip of the tongue. 

9. The remains of Innocent Jocularity brought on again in a 
decidedly grave way, and nothing savouring of offensive. Fol- 
lowed with silence. 




"it can't be helped.' 



12. There were not sufficient friends to make a sitting, and no 
chair. 

16. At Sister Rumble's, by course of rotation. No other 



230 HOOD'S 0\VN. 

member present, save mine own self, as by duty bound. A de- 
plorable falling awiiy from the cause. Whereof more hereafter. 

***** :^ 

The Record here breaks off. The society probably did not 
proceed farther, but died on the spot, of a complication of Inno- 
cent Jocularity and Sister Rumble, and was buried tacitly, with 
the fair Ruth Mumford for its chief mourner. The other papers 
are in verse, and a reading of them will certainly persuade the 
reviewers that they were premature in applying the designation of 
" Quaker Poetry" to foregone lays and lyrics. The first is a 
genuine brown study after nature ; the second a hint how Peace 
ought not to be proclaimed. 



SONNET. 

BY R. M. 



How sweet thus clad, in Autumn's mellow Tone, 
With serious Eye, the russet Scene to view ! 
No Verdure decks the Forest, save alone 
The sad green Holly, and the olive Yew. 
The Skies, no longer of a garish Blue, 
Subdued to Dove-like Tints, and soft as Wool, 
Reflected show their slaty Shades anew 
In the drab Waters of the clayey Pool. 
Meanwhile yon Cottage Maiden wends to School, 
In Garb of Chocolate so neatly drest. 
And Bonnet puce, fit object for the Tool, 
And chasten'd Pigments, of our Brother West ; 
Yea, all is silent, sober, calm, and cool, 
Save gaudy Robin with his crimson Breast. 



THE QUAKERS CONVERSAZIONE. 231 

LINES 

ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE. 
BY DOBCAS DOVE. 

And is it thus ye welcome Peace ! 

From mouths of forty-pounding Bores ? 
Oh cease, exploding Cannons, cease ! 

Lest Peace, affrighted, shun our shores ! 

Not so the quiet Queen should come ; 
But like a Nurse to still our Fears, 

With Shoes of List, demurely dumb, 
And Wool or Cotton in her Ears ! 

She asks for no triumphal Arch ; 

No Steeples for their ropy Tongues ; 
Down, Drumsticks, down, She needs no March, 

Or blasted Trumps from brazen Lungs. 

She wants no Noise of mobbing Throats 

To tell that She is drawing nigh : . 
Why this Parade of scarlet Coats, 

When War has closed his bloodshot Eye ? 

Returning to Domestic Loves, 

When War has ceased with all its Ills, - 
Captains should come like sucking Doves, 

With Olive Branches in their Bills. 

No need there is of vulgar Shout, 

Bells, Cannons, Trumpets, Fife and Drum, 

And Soldiers marching all about. 
To let Us know that Peace is come. 

O mild should be the Signs, and meek, 

Sweet Peace's Advent to proclaim ! 
Silence her noiseless Foot should speak, 

And Echo should repeat the same. 



232 



HOOD'S OWN. 



Lo ! where the Soldier walks, alas ! 

With Scars received on foreign Grounds ; 
Shall we consume in coloured Glass 

The Oil that should be pour'd in Wounds ? 

The bleeding Gaps of War to close, 
Will whizzing Rocket-Flight avail ? 

Will Squibs enliven Orphan's Woes ? 
Or Crackers cheer the Widow's Tale ? 




A OKKERAL PEACE. 



233 



THE MORNING CALL. 

I CANNOT conceive any prospect more agreeable to a weary- 
traveller than the approach to Bedfordshire. Each valley re- 
minds him of Sleepy Hollow, the fleecy clouds seem hke blankets, 
the lakes and ponds are clean sheets ; the setting sun looks like a 
warming-pan. He dreams of dreams to come. His travelling- 
cap transforms to a night-cap, the coach hning feels softlier 
squabbed ; the guard's horn plays " Lullaby." Every flower by 
the road-side is a poppy. Each jolt of the coach is but a drowsy 
stumble up stairs. The lady opposite is the chamber-maid ; the 
gentleman beside her is Boots. He shdes into imaginary slippers ; 
he winks and nods flirtingly at Sleep, so soon to be his own. 
Although the wheels may be rattling into vigilant Wakefield, it 
appears to him to be sleepy Ware, with its great Bed, a whole 
County of Down, spread " all before him where to choose his 
place of rest." 

It was in a similar mood, after a long dusty droughty dog- 
day's journey, that I entered the Dolphin, at Bedhampton. I 
nodded in at the door, winked at the lights, blinked at the com- 
pany in the coffee-room, yawned for a glass of negus, swallowed 
it with my eyes shut, as though it had been " a pint of nappy," 
surrendered my boots, clutched a candlestick, and blundered, slip- 
shod, up the staii-s to number nine. 

Blessed be the man, says Sancho Panza, who fii-st invented 



234 HOOD'S OWN. 

sleep : and blessed be heaven that he did not take out a patent, 
and keep his discovery to himself. My clothes dropped ojQT me : 
I saw through a drowsy haze the likeness of a four-poster : 
" Great Nature's second course " was spread before me ; — and I 
fell to without a long grace ! 

Here's a body — there's a bed ! 
There's pillow — here's a head ! 
There's a curtain — here's a light ! 
There's a puff— and so Good Night ! 

It would have been gross improvidence to waste more words 
on the occasion ; for I was to be roused up again at four o'clock 
the next morning, to proceed by the early coach. I determined, 
therefore, to do as much sleep within the interval as I could ; and 
in a minute, short measure, I was with that mandarin, Morpheus, 
in his Land of Nod. 

How intensely we sleep when we are fatigued! Some as 
sound as tops, others as fast as churches. For my own part I 
must have slept as fast as a Cathedral,— as fast as Young Rapid 
wished his father to slumber, — nay as fast as the French veteran 
who dreams over again the whole Russian campaign while dozing 
in his sentry-box. I must have slept as fast as a fast post-coach 
in my four-poster— or rather I must have slept " like winkin'," for 
I seemed hardly to have closed my eyes, when a voice cried 
" Sleep no more ! " 

It was that of Boots, calHng and knocking at the door, whilst 
through the keyhole a ray of candlelight darted into my cham- 
ber. 

"Who's there?" 

"It's me, your honour, I humbly ax pardon — but somehow 
I've oversleeped myself, and the coach be gone by !" 



SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 235 

" The devil it is ! — then I have lost my place !" 

" No, not exactly, your honour. She stops a bit at the Dragon 
t'other end o' the town ; and if your honour wouldn't object to a 
bit of a run — " 

" That's enough — come in. Put down the light — and take up 
that bag — my coat over youi' arm — and waistcoat with it — and 
that cravat." 

Boots acted according to orders. I jumped out of bed — 
pocketed my nightcap — screwed on my stockings — plunged into 
my trowsei-s — rammed my feet into wrong right and left boots — 
tumbled down the back stairs — burst through a door, and found 
myself in the fresh air of the stable -yard, holding a lantern, 
which, in sheer haste, or spleen, I pitched into the horsepond. 
Then began the race, during which I completed my toilet, run- 
ning and firing a verbal volley at Boots, as often as I could spare 
breath for one. 

" And you call this waking me up — for the coach. My waist- 
coat ! — Why I could wake myself — too late — without being 
called. Now my cravat — and be hanged to you ! — Confound 
that stone — and give me my coat. A nice road — for a run ! — 
I suppose you keep it — on purpose. How many gentlemen — 
may you do a week ? — I'll tell you what. If I — run — a foot — 
further—" 

I paused for wind ; while Boots had stopped of his own accord. 
We had turned a corner into a small square ; and on the opposite 
side, certainly there stood an inn with the sign of the Dragon, 
but without any sign of a coach at the door. Boots stood beside 
me, aghast, and surveying the house from the top to the bottom ; 
not a wreath of smoke came from a chimney ; the curtains were 
closed over every window, and the door was closed and shuttered. 



236 



HOOD'S OWN. 



I could hardly contain my indignation when I looked at the in- 
fernal somnolent visage of the fellow, hardly yet broad awake — 
he kept rubbing his black-lead eyes with his hands, as if he 
would have rubbed them out. 

" Yes, you may well look — you have overslept yourself with a 
vengeance. The coach must have passed an hour ago — and they 
have all gone to bed again ! " 

"No, there be no coach, sure enough," sohloquised Boots, 
slowly raising his eyes from the road, where he had been search- 
ing for the track of recent wheels, and fixing them with a depre- 
cating expression on my face. " No, there's no coach — I ax a 
thousand pardons, your honour — but you see, sir, what with 
waiting on her, and talking on her, and expecting on her, and 
giving notice on her, every night of my life, your honour — why 
I sometimes dreams on her — and that's the case as is now 1 " 




WHY don't you look out for work?" 



237 



Ml] Intr Enir iBir 



I. VI. 

My mother bids me bind my heir, Too many of all trades there be, 

But not the trade where I should Like Pedlars, each has such s 

bind ; pack ; 

To place a boy — the how and A merchant selling coals'^ — we 

where — see 

It is the plague of parent-kind ! The buyer send to cellar back. 

II. vn. 

She does not hint the slightest A Hardware dealer 1 — that might 

plan, please, 

Nor what indentures to endorse ; But if his trade's foundation leans 

Whether to bind him to a man, — On spikes and nails, he wor.'fc 
Or, like Mazeppa, to a horse. have ease 

in. When he retires upon his means. 
What line to choose of likely rise, viii. 

To something in the Stocks at A Soldier ? — there he has not 

last, — nerves ; 

" Fast bind, fast find," the proverb A Sailor seldom lays up pelf: 

cries, A Baker ? — no, a baker serves 

I find I cannot bind so fast ! His customer before himself. 

IV. IX. 

A Statesman James can never be ; Dresser of hair ? — that's not the 
A Tailor? — there I only learn sort ; 

His chief concern is cloth, and he A Joiner jars with his desire — 

Is always cutting his concern. A Churchman ? — James is very 

V. short, 

A Seedsman ?— I'd not have him And cannot to a church aspire. 

so; X. 

A Grocer's plum might disappoint ; A Lawyer? — that's a hardish term ! 

A Butcher ? — no, not that — al- A Publisher might give him ease, 

though If he could into Longman's firm, 

I hear " the times are out of Just plunge at once " in medias 

joint ! " Rees." 



238 



HOOD'S OWN. 



A shop for pot, and pan, and cup, 
Such brittle Stock I can't advise ; 
A Builder running houses up, 
Their gains are stories — may be 
lies! 

XII. 

A Coppersmith I can't endure — 
Nor petty Usher, A, B, C-ing ; 
A Publican no father sure. 
Would be the author of his be- 



XIII. 

A Paper-maker? — come he must 
To rags before he sells a sheet — 
A Miller ? — all his toil is just • 
To make a meal — he does not eat. 

XIV. 

A Currier ? — that by favour goes — 
A Chandler gives me great mis- 
giving— 
An Undertaker ? — one of those 
That do not hope to get their 
living ! 




THE FAMILY LIBRARY. 



XV. An Auctioneer I never did- 

Three Golden Balls ? — I like them The victim of a slavish lot, 

not; Obliged to do as he is bid ! 



MV SON AND HEIR. 



239 



A Broker watching foil and rise 

Of Stock?— I'd rather deal in 
stone — 

A Printer? — there Ms toils com- 
prise 

Another's work beside his own. 

XVII, 

A Cooper ? — neither I nor Jem 
Have any taste or turn for that, — 
A Fish retailer ? — but with him, 
One part of trade is always 

flat. 

xvm. 
A Painter ? — long he would not 

live, — 
An Artist's a precarious craft — 
In trade Apothecaries give, 
But very seldom take, a drjiiigfht. 



XIX. 

A Glazier ? — what if he should 

smash ! 
A Crispin he shall not be "^ade — 
A Grazier may be losing 
Although he drives "a ng 

trade." 

XX. 

Well, something must be done ! 

to look 
On all my little works around — 
James is too big a boy, like book, 
To leave upon the shelf unbound. 

XXI. 

But what to do ? — my temples ache 
From evening's dew till morning's 

pearl. 
What course to take my boy to 

make-^— 
Oh could I make my boy — a girl ! 



THE END. 



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